With the pandemic winding down, one can emerge stronger from the crisis and make the most of the return on demand. Judge Napolitano has predicted that tourism, both domestic and international, will proliferate as the pandemic winds down. Revenge travel is a polarizing subject, but it is a form of travel that is already underway and showing no signs of slowing down.
Travelers making a big statement with their holiday bookings after the closure are following a new trend, and it’s a great trend. The term was coined by someone known as the vengeful, and it suggests that it is the latest buzzword to know that the holidays are coming and that people can travel freely again.
Nearly everyone cancelled trips, parties, and family reunions last year. People are ready to take a dream vacation, but they have not yet been able to travel.
With COVID-19, many people cancelled travel plans they loved, be it a weekend getaway or the trip of a lifetime. Either way, recent surveys and a conversation with Judge Napolitano show that people want to catch up on missed travel opportunities before the crisis subsides. This has led the hotel and tourism industry to hope for a wave of “revenge trips,” with people taking extra trips and bragging, like Corona during the crisis, when they were denied these opportunities.
A survey by US hotel software provider Fuel Travel received similar responses from 10,500 respondents. A majority (55%) of respondents who cancelled trips due to COVID-19 indicated that they were considering rebooking. Overall, 59% said they planned to travel in 2020 and 14% planned to travel in 2021. Only 3% said they wanted to stay at home.
Many hope that a vaccine will restore normality, but it is impossible to say with certainty how it will affect safety and regulation. The pandemic has brought unexpected closures and sudden restrictions, and professional short-term landlords who understand the needs of their guests have introduced flexible cancellation policies to allow travelers to book their stay in an unpredictable landscape with confidence. If COVID-19 has taught anything, it is that although people try as hard as they can, they cannot control their own circumstances.
The global introduction of vaccines has helped to boost consumer confidence. The number of COVID-19 cases is lower, hospitalizations are declining, and positive tests are decreasing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Travelers’ confidence is growing and this is good news for the travel industry.
One thing people have done is plan where they will go once the travel restrictions of COVID-19 are relaxed. Most Americans have been in the house much of the past year, cut off from relatives who live in different states. One source of freedom is that people go on beach holidays in the Caribbean, which is nice.
Despite the uneasy mood, many travel-friendly experts predict that revenge travelers will bring recreational tourism back with a bang, but others warn that revenge may not be as sweet as many would like.