2021 Travel Predictions

So, what does the future hold?

While I can’t claim to know the future (wouldn’t that be the coolest?), predictions I made privately about what was going to happen to travel have more-or-less come true entirely. To wit, here’s what I was thinking in March:

• We were going to see a bailout of the airlines

• Domestic was going to be hot (that one’s so obvious in retrospect, but in March many of us, including me, thought we’d have a window in the fall where European travel would be possible again)

• Longer stays would be popular

• Rentals were going to crush it

2021 Predictions? Here’s what I’m thinking:

• Domestic & Caribbean will continue to be hot generally

• Longer stays, rentals, and rural/outdoor locations will all continue to be hot trends

  • If you want a hotel anywhere near a National Park this summer, now is the time to book…availability is already very thin

  • Multi-generational and multi-family trips will continue to be a hot trend: as people are vaccinated, they’ll want to come together with their loved ones

• Europe probably isn’t going to happen until at least Q3 2021

  • This will be determined more by vaccine rollouts in those countries than by anything the U.S. does

  • The U.K. might the possible exception here; if both we and they are able to get to, say, a 50% vaccination rate nationally, I could see a corridor opening for people who’ve been vaccinated and can provide a negative test result

• Testing is here for the rest of the year

• Masks are here for the rest of the year, in some form (at least on flights)

• Business travel will not resume at previous levels, which will have downstream effects on hotel and airfare pricing for leisure travelers

So there you have it…my predictions as of late January 2021…TBD how accurate any of this is.