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News / 52% of people globally are planning to travel this holiday season - with higher budgets
Premise, the crowdsourced insights company, is tracking the Omicron variant's impact on the holiday travel season this year
Premise, the platform that democratizes the way actionable data is sourced and used, today released new insights on 2021 holiday-season travel. Premise surveyed over 9,000 users across 23 countries about their travel plans this holiday season, as well as the impact the pandemic has had on those plans.
52% of respondents reported being "very likely" or "somewhat likely" to travel during the holiday season, while 48% were "not too likely" or "not likely at all" to travel. 76% of the respondents that are planning to travel have a budget that is either more or about the same as 2019 pre-COVID levels – a positive indicator for this holiday travel season.
Premise gathered this data from November 24 through November 30 in 23 countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, the Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.
In 2021, only 33% of respondents canceled holiday travel plans entirely due to the COVID-19 spike and the emergence of new variants, a number that's down 14% from 2020. Considering that 40% of respondents said they modified travel plans for 2021, up 9% from 2020, the data suggests that travelers are more willing to change plans to deal with COVID-19 variants or spikes rather than cancel holiday travel altogether.
27% of respondents did not change their travel plans at all, up 5% from 2020, a positive holiday travel trend for 2021. A majority of survey respondents supported health screening requirements for travel, with mask wearing, proof of vaccination, and COVID-19 testing having the highest level of support from 2021 holiday travelers.
"Holiday travel is clearly ramping up, even though travelers with international plans have more to consider," said Steven Casley, Global Business Development Executive Travel & Hospitality at Premise. "Of the respondents who are planning to travel, 81% are traveling domestically within their country of residence with only 19% planning to travel internationally. Ever-shifting restrictions in countries around the world and the new US requirement that travelers must take a test within one day of a return flight's departure for the United States are all factors negatively impacting international travel recovery."