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Vacations may be back on Americans’ agendas later this year – especially if vaccines help quell the Covid-19 pandemic – but business travel won’t bounce back for some time, according to a forecast from the American Hotel & Lodging Association.
Fifty-six percent of Americans say they will likely travel for leisure in 2021, but 48% say their willingness to travel is in some way related to vaccination, according to the report released earlier this month, AHLA’s State of the Hotel Industry 2021 “. .
The findings are consistent with a recent ValuePenguin survey of 1,200 consumers, which found that 57% have planned a vacation this year, and 16% booked right after hearing about new vaccines.
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34% of travelers are satisfied with the idea of staying in a hotel, AHLA discovered. And improved cleaning and hygiene practices are now the consumer’s second priority, after price, when booking hotels.
By comparison, business travel is not expected to return to 2019 levels until 2023 or 2024, according to AHLA. Business travel will be 85% lower than in 2019 through April, when it will only increase very slowly.
Only 29% of frequent business travelers still employed said they expect to travel to a conference in the first half of 2021. Another 36% think the second half of the year is more likely, and 20% don’t expect to travel until 2022 or later.
That is to say, half of all hotel rooms in the US are likely to remain empty by 2021. The accommodation sector, which fell nearly 4 million jobs compared to the same time in 2019, saw an unemployment rate of 18.9% in December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Covid-19 has wiped out a 10-year growth in hotel jobs,” Chip Rogers, president and CEO of AHLA, said in a statement. “Despite the challenges facing the hotel industry, we are resilient.
“Hotels across the country are focused on creating an environment that is ready for guests when the journey begins to return,” he added.
AHLA’s report consolidated the findings of several polls conducted in December and January. Morning Consult conducted the consumer poll of 2,200 adults from January 7-9 and the business traveler survey of 400 adults from January 7-12. The consumer safety survey was conducted by Ecolab on December 10 among 556 adults.