New Survey: Traveler Confidence Index Drops for Second
Straight Month After Steady Recovery Over The Past Year
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Colleen Gallagher
315.447.2331
September 13, 2021 (Washington, DC) – The Traveler Confidence Index dropped across the board for the second straight month, according to the latest monthly Traveler Confidence Index developed by Travel Again. Leisure travelers expressed that concerns around health risks (42%), fear of losing money from last minute cancellations or trip disruptions (38%) and too many restrictions at preferred destinations (31%) topped the list of barriers keeping them from traveling. For business travelers, many cited no current need for business travel in write-in responses, while 28% shared that their customers/colleagues aren't in the office or taking meetings right now and 26% report their company's travel budget is too limited. Additionally, 1 in 5 (19%) say their company doesn't allow business travel right now.
“The travel industry was hoping for a business travel bump post-Labor Day, however, only 30% of business travelers report having booked future travel reservations.” said Travel Again Co-Founder Mike McCormick. “We need to make a concerted effort to educate travelers on how they can travel safely despite COVID, so that we can reverse this negative trend and truly get on the way to safely and responsibly resuming travel.”
Additional Key Findings
Only 44% of travelers have made reservations for upcoming travel, down from 56% last month.
The most important confidence building elements for business travelers include vaccinations for yourself, mandatory masks, frequent cleaning and empty middle seats. On the leisure side, there was frequent cleaning, mandatory masks and limited crowd sizes.
Less than 1 in 4 (23%) business travelers say they feel fully ready to travel if required by their employer. A similar amount of leisure travelers (26%) feel fully ready to travel when asked about their confidence in traveling for leisure right now.
Traveler Confidence Index: The confidence index dropped across the board for a second straight month following a steady recovery over the last year. On the leisure side it fell from 3.55 in July to 3.43 in August, its lowest level since April. The business Index dropped from 3.48 last month to 3.30 today.
Travel Again has developed the Traveler Confidence Index assessing confidence levels in both the business and leisure traveler to guide the prioritization of future travel industry initiatives by measuring the impact on traveler confidence. This 11th edition focuses on U.S. travelers and we will continue reporting out on the index monthly, and will ultimately expand to include other countries as well.
About Travel Again: Travel Again unites the global travel industry to restore consumer and corporate confidence in traveling and to encourage responsible government policy. Visit travelagainproject.org for more information. Join Travel Again and support the global recovery of the travel industry. Follow Travel Again on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.