Pedal to the Metal
If you’ve ever been in a car with an “energetic” toddler, you know the frustration and stress of throttling through speed traps on the rush to grandma’s house. Your child’s pent-up desires to GET OUT is a seething mass of vocalized inertia, akin to the desires of destination travelers at the top of 2021. A glance in the rearview mirror of leisure history reveals patterns of booms following busts—as dependable as a wily child escaping a five-point harness.
During the 2020 COVID-19 travel bust, overall attraction attendance fell 55%. Voice of the Visitor reveals that as of December 2020, 66% of destination travelers intend to visit an attraction in 2021. Adam Sacks of Tourism Economics echoes this optimism and extends the prediction of leisure travel volume to 90% by the end of 2021 and 101% by 2022. But when does it start?
ARE WE THERE YET?
For all travelers (whether they ventured out in 2020 or not), the average date of their next leisure trip is expected to occur around June 2021. Factors such as school/work schedules, testing availability, and the anticipated physical and emotional comfort of vaccines are major drivers of this future-forward date.
DOMESTIC BLISS
In the USA, situations such as state-to-state travel restrictions have encouraged local travel. More people visited an attraction that was located within 50 miles of their home (+6% over 2019). Season passes and memberships increased in 2020 and were much higher than the historical average across all attraction types. Intent to return to these same attractions in 2021 also had a significant 6-point increase over 2019 levels.
With international travel under a patchwork of restrictions, many notable countries are also experiencing or expecting a surge of local momentum. Due to confidence in health and safety measures, domestic travel in China is almost back to the level seen prior to the pandemic, and high-end domestic travel is actually ahead of it. Similarly, in a global survey conducted in August 2020 by Agoda Company Pte., 70% or more of travelers from Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia indicated their current preference for domestic travel over international.
“I SEE IT FIRST!”
To discover which attractions guests will visit first in the new year, we asked 2020 travelers about their 2021 plans and found that attraction recovery will look different depending on attraction type. Families with young children will be eager for children’s museums by spring break, with theme parks and science centers following quickly. Live theater trails the list, with Broadway officially shut down until at least May 2021.
3, 2, 1 … GO!
As destination operators and designers, our goal has always been to entice and retain visitors by creating amazing experiences that anticipate their needs. 2020 challenged and changed our cultures and our psyches—which means, our needs have changed. In next week’s newsletter, we will examine the psychographics of the 2021 traveler in order to understand how they can best be served. Because while some toddlers are yearning for hugs from a lavender-scented grandma, others can’t wait to join her on a snowmobile and zoom up the mountain!
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