Our latest survey uncovers what American travelers are concerned of most this season and how they’re planning for the future of travel. With respondents spread out across the country, results indicate that consumers are continuing to travel and spend on travel even given economic uncertainty and rising prices – all while navigating the frustrations that come along with the busy season.
Travelers’ biggest nightmare: overly chatty passengers
Americans’ #1 worry while on a trip is being placed next to an overly chatty passenger. The next five top nightmares after that are: paying expensive travel prices, having a flight canceled or overbooked, dealing with massive delays, missing a flight or layover and sitting near crying children.
And though travelers are concerned, it’s not holding them back from booking trips.
The wild travel climate has brought out the planner in all of us
Given the overwhelming amount of travelers driving up prices and snapping up accommodations and flights this summer, Americans are planning their travels far in advance.
With fall and winter around the corner, 68% of respondents say they plan to travel for the holiday season (Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve), with 50% of them intending to travel to international destinations. And these aren’t going to be short stays. The majority (53%) said they plan to make these holiday getaways around 7 days.
The holidays aren’t all they’ve planned for: almost 34% of Americans have already planned their 2024 spring break trip while a whopping 70% said they intend to travel for their birthday next year.
With the intent to travel higher than ever before, survey respondents shared how they like to best plan their trips.
Travelers prefer human help over a virtual assistant & are relying on socials for trip planning
Travelers are increasingly relying on ChatGPT and other AI tools to help them quickly plan getaways, but about 23% of travelers prefer a human travel agent. 18% prefer to rely on a virtual travel assistant and 51% want both. That said, 8% of travelers aren’t interested in either and just want to plan their trips themselves.
When it comes to social media, Instagram is the #1 social media platform of choice for trip planning. About 28% of American travelers say they rely on this social platform the most for planning travel (over other platforms including Facebook and TikTok).
Price is top of mind for those who are, and are not, traveling this coming holiday season
61% of Americans said they are unable to travel this coming holiday season because they can’t afford it, showing that concerns over inflated prices, job security and economic uncertainty remain.
For those who plan on traveling for the coming winter/fall, budget is top of mind. 65% of them expressed they are trying to keep their trips under $5k with the average cost for a holiday vacation sitting at $4,700. A majority of respondents (53%) reported that they will spend around $2-$4,999k on their holiday trip, keeping within the average cost range.
Americans don’t want to play it safe on vacay
Why go on vacation if you’re not going to have a little fun? That’s what most Americans are saying with 85% of them open to extreme tourism activities, from cage diving with sharks to storm chasing. Of those, 46% want to base jump on vacation, 42% would go storm chasing, 41% would cage dive with sharks, 32% would go caving, and 27% would go volcano boarding.
That said, 13% want no part in extreme travel activities like these. The activity they’re least inclined to try? A private submarine tour (though 9% of American travelers are willing to try it).
The importance of travel protection every step of the way
Elad Schaffer, Faye Co-Founder & CEO, says, “According to our latest survey, American travelers are only kinda informed on what their travel insurance covers them for. A whopping 40% note that they are just ‘somewhat knowledgeable’ on how the travel insurance they buy protects them. That’s why more modern insurance providers, like Faye, have hit the scene with coverage that’s human-friendly to read and understand, as well as comprehensive enough to cover travelers’ entire trip. We’re in the business of offering travelers holistic, digestible trip protection, rather than fancy-named, confusing packages that offer partial protection.”
Booking an upcoming trip? Make sure to go with Faye.
