American Escapism? Quarterly Travel Survey Reveals Rising U.S. Interest in International Vacations
Delving into topics such as the classic American road trip and the steady rise of cannabis tourism, MMGY’s Travel Intelligence released today the “Summer Edition” of its renowned and wide-reaching research study, Portrait of American Travelers®. An examination of the evolving habits, preferences and behaviors of today’s U.S. travel consumers, the quarterly survey found that 8 in 10 active leisure travelers are interested in taking an international trip within the next two years, potentially signaling a new era of growth for Americans venturing abroad.
“With traveler interest and intent holding steady into summer, it’s evident that Americans are eagerly making their plans to travel and escape in the near future, despite – or because of – world events and financial burdens,” said Chris Davidson, Executive Vice President of Travel Intelligence. “While it’s encouraging to see strong interest in international outbound travel, we’re also cognizant that the national political climate and global tensions could temper this enthusiasm as the year progresses. That said, we remain quite optimistic about the overall travel forecast based on what consumers are telling us.”
Additional key takeaways from the report follow.
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Travel Intentions Remain Strong: Compared to last year, travel intentions have increased across almost all household incomes. Meanwhile, travel spending intentions for the year ahead have reached the highest level recorded by MMGY since the COVID-19 pandemic. This increase can be attributed mainly to Boomers and those with household incomes of $100,000 or more.
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Road Trips Reign Supreme: More travelers than ever say that they took a road trip in the last 12 months (64%), nearly doubling the 33% answering as such in 2015. Younger generations and those with kids are most likely to take a road trip in the next 12 months, motivated by spontaneity and the ability to explore multiple places.
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Hot Domestic Destinations: Hawaii (67%), Florida (64%), Colorado (59%) and California (59%) continue to be the top states drawing interest from leisure travelers, with Florida, Colorado and California all displaying statistically significant increases year over year.
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Cannabis Tourism: More than a third of travelers are interested in participating in a cannabis-related activity while on vacation, with half of those travelers interested in visiting a cannabis shop. Surprisingly, a quarter of these interested travelers do not use cannabis regularly but voice being open to cannabis-related experiences while traveling.
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Generational Differences: Finally, while other generations are either witnessing an increase in travel intentions or are starting to level off, Gen Z continues to steadily decline. This may be due to the increased pressure of inflation and trip costs on younger travelers, who have less discretionary income overall.
Now available for purchase, the “Summer Edition” of Portrait of American Travelers® also includes new insights dedicated to travel advisors, the role of diversity in travel marketing and the changing face of the luxury traveler, among other topics. For more information or to attain a copy of the study, visit mmgyintel.com.
About the 2024 Portrait of American Travelers®
MMGY’s Portrait of American Travelers® study provides an in-depth examination of the impact of the current economic environment, prevailing social values, and emerging travel habits, preferences and intentions of Americans. Now in its 34th year, it is widely regarded as a leading barometer of travel trends and an essential tool for developing and evolving brand and marketing strategies. The travel trend information presented in this “Summer Edition” report was obtained from interviews with 4,500 U.S. adults in May 2024 and features data from four generations: Gen Zers (18–25), Millennials (26–41), Gen Xers (42–57) and Boomers (58–76). The Silent/GI generation (77+) was also surveyed, but results are not broken out for this specific generation due to a small respondent sample size. This is the second of four quarterly reports to be released this year.
