4000 American travelers were polled on the current conditions of travel and the answers were just as puzzling as everything is these days. What the results show is that people feel that the current negative conditions of the economy do have an impact on travel, but at the same time most Americans plan to travel in 2022 on average 3 times.
State of the Economy and Travel
59% of travelers believe there will be an economic recession in 2022.
23% of travelers had to cancel or change their plans due to the increase of pricing in either flights or hotels/vacation rentals.
Close to 68% of travelers stated that if gas prices did not go down they will be taking fewer road trips this summer. This does not have a direct impact on travel to Hawaii other than if flight prices stay low people may consider flying to Hawaii versus taking a long drive to another destination.
The budget that people have from travel on average has decreased in 2022 from $4200 to $3800, which takes most people out of the luxury travel category.
COVID19 and Travel
Close to 45% of travelers feel that a new dangerous variant of COVID19 will come out in the next year.
Business Travel
While 2/3s of Americans feel their businesses will require more people to come back to work in the office, 64% believe that virtual meetings will exist and that still will cause a reduction in business travel as compared to pre-COVID19.
While Hawaii travel has seen some record setting numbers in some aspects of travel, the future still remains unstable in the travel industry for Hawaii. Although things are unstable, with the removal of the Hawaii Safe Travels program, Hawaii is sure to see a brief increase at minimum in travel to the state.