Although expressions such as “remission,” “re-activation” and “return to normalcy” are nowhere top-of-mind in the parlance of the global travel and tourism industry, there are markers, here and there, that suggest a stubborn degree of confidence for the not-too-distant future.
A case in point was the release, last Wednesday, of the results of the fourth weekly survey by Skyscanner, which indicated that more and more people are seeing the global situation as it pertains to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic as one that’s “getting better,” reported Travel Agent Central.
In fact, the percentage of people who thought the situation was getting better had increased, from 9 percent in the first Skyscanner survey, an increase of 26 percent over the previous week.
For the survey, Skyscanner polled more than 5,000 travelers from 17 countries. The percentage of people who thought that the global situation for international travel was getting worse had declined—from 74 percent in the first week’s survey results to 45 percent last week. The percentage of people who believed the situation had remained the same has increased from 10 to 19 percent; while those who respondents who said they “don’t know” remained the same, at 10 percent.
There’s more confidence in domestic travel. The percentage of travelers who feel the domestic situation is getting better has increased from 8 to 35 percent. In fact, four of the top five searches from April 4 – 12 in the U.S. were domestic (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Honolulu), while London was the only international destination.
However, both global and domestic travel risk perception, while declining slowly, remains high. But the risk of domestic travel is perceived to be lower than global travel. The optimism for traveling later this year remains stable, but was higher for domestic travel than it is for global travel.
In the United States, 74 percent of travelers indicated that they are confident that it will be safe to travel internationally again in six months. For other destinations (this included Brazil, Australia, Japan and South Korea.) have much less confidence, with percentages that ranged from 38 to 56 percent. For German and Dutch travelers, confidence levels were similar to those of American travelers.
Regarding domestic travel, destinations across the board with more confident, with 61 to 91 percent of travelers being confident that it’ll be safe to travel domestically again in six months.
Click here for more details on the survey.
