Next week it’s National Travel & Tourism Week in the US. An annual tradition for the US Travel Community. Normally a time when travel and tourism professionals across the country unite to celebrate the value travel holds for the economy and personal wellbeing. This year will be different but reason for us to bring some positive news from Belgium and the Netherlands:

Research travel behavior

Goodbye.be researched future travel behavior among 2,500 consumers in Belgium. They investigated the travel intentions for 2020, post Covid-19. The research showed some interesting results:

  • A majority of those who already booked a trip still want to go on (a postponed) vacation, preferably in September.
  • Only 8% of the respondents wants to cancel because of fear and insecurity.
  • The travel voucher is generally accepted and the feedback is positive, though there still is some finetuning to be done.
  • Travel insurances increased enormously in popularity, 11% higher after Corona.
  • People show more need for service and security. This is positive for the travel trade as booking via a tour operator or agent will provide this security.
  • There will be less vacations by plane, domestic will be the first market to recover
  • The travel budget remains unchanged in 75% of the cases.

Booking season 2021

KLM AirFrance will receive € 2-4 billion (in the Netherlands) and € 7 billion (in France) from their respective governments. A huge relieve for the Travel Industry in general. Although many long haul (US-bound) family vacations will not take place this summer, there is no alternative (long haul) destination for a ‘celebrative’ vacation with the entire family. This can only mean that these budgets will be saved until next year summer. Simply because it is not possible to delay these vacations as the kids will need to go back to school by the end of August/early September.

It could very well be that the booking season 2021 is starting in October already where December through to March is the normal pattern. Which could be a consideration for all suppliers to be ready a little earlier this year!