U.S hotel industry reports strong winter bookings, despite a late-start to the travel season and increased tariffs on certain imports from China.
The “travel insights 2021” is a report that predicts strong winter bookings. The report also includes the top 10 travel destinations for this year and next.
According to travel consultants, with the winter solstice approaching, a significant number of passengers will be going into a broad selection of places throughout the 2021/22 winter season.
“Forget the headlines,” said Richard Turen, managing director of the Naperville, Illinois-based agency, “the Churchill & Turen guest can only stay away from freshly made croissants and bistecca alla fiorentina for so long.”
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“Given that our nation is in the midst of a severe epidemic and about 40% of our population rejects travel science,” he added, “we’re finding that the urge to leave the home base is greater than we’ve ever known.”
“Our future reservations have surpassed all of our cautious forecasts.” We work weekends and have never cut down on worker hours.”
Bookings to the Middle East and Dubai are increasing, according to Antoine D. Wilson, owner of A.D. Elite Travels in Boca Raton, Fla.
“A lot of this is based on my suggestions to customers, since winter 2022 is the best season to visit Dubai,” he added, noting that the Expo 2020, which was canceled last year, is presently taking place in the city.
At night, an aerial picture of the Expo 2020 Dubai. (Image courtesy of Expo 2020 Dubai LLC)
It should come as no surprise that visitors are choosing to visit such perennial favorites as Mexico, the Caribbean, and Hawaii, in addition to more exotic locations.
“The Cancun/Riviera Maya area continues to be our top seller for the 2022 winter season,” said Kim Cook, owner of Love to Travel in Overland Park, Kan.
“We have a strong demand for that site since it is our only nonstop destination from Kansas City.”
“We’ve been receiving a lot more last-minute reservations than we have in the past,” Cook said, adding that around 25% of requests are for Hawaii, which is a substantially larger proportion than previous year owing to the COVID no-return testing requirement.
“Some of these companies contacted us months ago, but they were concerned about the COVID regulations,” she said. “They’ve had enough of waiting and are eager to go to the beach.”
Maui, Hawaii’s Kapalua Bay Beach (image courtesy of 4nadia/iStock/Getty Images Plus)
While Cook predicted that January 2022 would be a record-breaking booking month based on the amount of new requests the agency was getting, “recent reports of increased COVID instances and the new version would most certainly slow the requests down,” according to Cook.
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Winter booking numbers are surpassing Acendas Travel’s expectations, according to JoAnne Weeks, vacation division manager in Kansas City, Kan., with many clients flying to “somewhere warm” in the winter, including Mexico, the Caribbean, and Hawaii.
“As of last month, we had the most new leads to our firm in the past year, and we’re on track for this month as well,” Weeks said. “The closer we get to the holidays, December always slows down.” This year, we’ve observed an uptick in demand for gift vouchers.”
Time for Travel’s president, Sarah Kline, had similar excellent news to share. “Since Thanksgiving, we’ve seen a surge in new reservations and demand, and they’re all looking for January/February trips,” she added. “There is some hesitancy in pulling the trigger, but the demand is there.”
“My customers are done preparing and pouring their own beverages,” she said. They want to be fed and attended to, and it needs to be somewhere finer than the home where they’ve been trapped for over a year.
“The all-inclusive industry is flourishing — [customers] don’t want to spend time figuring out where to eat or what to do. They want everything at their fingertips and want to have a good time… They’re looking for a change of scenery and to feel like life is back to normal.”
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The “travel industry outlook 2021” is a report from the travel advisors that are predicting strong winter bookings. The report predicts that this year will be a record-breaking year for the industry.
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