After over a year of government restrictions in the United States (U.S.), vaccination rates have accelerated, and the nation is on the verge of a travel boom.
NB: This is an article from OTA Insight
According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, as of April 12, almost 121 million people in the U.S. had been given one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine and of those, more than 74 million have had the two full vaccinations.
In total, 22% of the population are now fully vaccinated and traveller confidence is returning apace. So much so, there are now concerns over labour shortages in the travel and hospitality sectors – a problem which would have been inconceivable, even at the start of this year.
Contents
In this article, first we look at search data from the states of Texas and Florida, and several cities within each state. We then examine search data from the cities of Indiana, Indianapolis and San Antonio, Texas; hosts of the men’s and women’s NCAA March Madness basketball tournaments.
1. Texas
2. Florida
3. Indiana, Indianapolis
4. San Antonio, Texas
A new approach for hoteliers
On Friday 12 March, the Transportation Security Administration screened more travellers through U.S. airports than any day since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. Although not yet back to pre-pandemic levels, for this time of year U.S. air travel is now taking flight.
It’s an altogether positive sign for hoteliers in the U.S. market and a further indication that recovery is now well under way in the industry and a major uptick in demand is likely to arrive this summer.
Demand is returning to a world in which historical trends and consumers booking patterns have been largely made redundant. It is now vital that hoteliers understand new booking behaviour through buyer intent and forward-looking data points, to capture market share and prosper in recovery, where government restrictions and traveller booking behaviour both change rapidly.
To give a more in-depth picture of the travel activity taking place in the U.S., we’ve examined the datasets of four key markets from February to April with Market Insight, the industry’s first market intelligence tool that provides real-time views on demand, based on the most recent aggregation of data points including: GDS, OTA and meta search, flight and hotel searches by consumers, alternative lodging options, and public holidays and events.
With Market Insight hoteliers can now accurately forecast demand for reservations based on consumer search behaviour and price competitively based on actionable insights.
1. Texas
The week of February 14-20 brought a winter storm rarely seen in Texas. Storm Uri engulfed the state in record setting low temperatures. Due to the sub-zero conditions and subsequent surge in energy use, the state’s power grid started to fail, which left at least 4.5 million electricity customers in Texas without power.
As a result, the week of February 14-20 saw hotel occupancy reach a 50-week high in the state, at 56.3%, and understandably all of these bookings came with a very short lead time. Occupancy levels also grew 9.4% over the previous week, the largest week-over-week occupancy increase for the state in the last year.
In March, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an Executive Order on March 2 which ended the state-wide mask mandate on March 10, whereby no legal jurisdiction would be able to enforce the wearing of masks in public.
Following the announcement, demand started to pick up across the state and presented an opportunity for hoteliers who were quick to act on this trend. This was evident for the popular Spring Break destination of San Antonio, which saw a 77% rise in flight searches, and a large increase in hotel OTA and meta search, particularly for 8-28 day and 0-7 day booking windows.
