Interest in travel is picking up as the pandemic winds down, and cooped-up Americans are itching to hit the road again, two recent surveys have found.
Travelers are thinking about booking trips to warm and sunny domestic climes — be they Sun Belt cities or beaches and national parks — and are also more open to planning trips abroad.
Separate surveys from websites Booking.com and Skyscanner, which partnered with customer engagement platform Braze and app intelligence provider Apptopia, found that Las Vegas, Miami and Orlando, Florida, are among the top destinations searched online by potential U.S. vacationers.
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Mark Crossey, U.S. travel expert at Skyscanner, said Americans are looking for short, domestic trips — 87% of trips booked at the site are for a week or less — and are favoring spots with fewer pandemic-related restrictions.
“Both Florida and Nevada no longer have travel restrictions for visitors and California anticipates its restrictions will soon lift, too,” he said. “All of these destinations enjoy warm summer weather and have plenty of activities for people to enjoy after a quiet year.”
Crossey said he expects to see Americans continue to travel in their own backyard throughout 2021, and anticipates “a resurgence in foreign trips as soon as international travel restrictions relax and popular European destinations reopen.”
The top five destinations from Skyscanner, Braze and Apptopia are, in fact, all cities: Las Vegas, Orlando, Los Angeles, Miami and New York. All but L.A. and the Big Apple, meanwhile, made Booking.com’s own list of top 10 destination searches for summer travel, which also featured seaside spots such as Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Ocean City, Maryland. The site’s survey found 61% of people plan to hit the sand at some point this summer.
