In travel, there are usually two types of trips to market to leisure travelers – last-minute getaways, and a big planned vacation. A couple might decide on a Monday that they’ll go to Las Vegas for the weekend. But very few families decide on a Monday to go to Orlando for a week starting on Friday. Usually, a week-long trip, especially one that requires tickets and hotels, is planned months in advance. That conventional wisdom has changed significantly in 2020.
Travelers are booking more last-minute trips, even to major destinations like Hawaii and Orlando. They’re booking long trips. And more people are driving to outdoor and secondary cities, as the leisure air travel market is stalling out.
The New Travel Patterns of 2020
The share of last-minute leisure hotel bookings (within the next 14 days) has moved up from about 48% of total bookings to about 63% of total bookings. With two-thirds of hotel stays being planned in such a short time window, marketers should be pricing and messaging in new ways. Yes, Las Vegas is still the ultimate weekend getaway, but with so many other destinations in play, brands can get creative.
For example, last-minute travel messaging is often based on seat or hotel availability, and promotional pricing. Marketers want to fill up empty space and are willing to discount in order to do so. Now that more people are booking in the last minute time window, promotions might not be as effective, and in fact, might lose the travel brand revenue that they could have otherwise captured.
Travel brands can expect to capture new demand for last-minute trips with messaging about how travelers can both be safe and have fun, and escape their restrictive, boring, or stressful daily lives and return to a feeling of “almost normal.” Elements like the weekend weather forecast, webcams of the pool, and a description of how spa services have been altered to be safer could be just as enticing as a good deal.
Hyatt recently sent loyalty members a promotional email that opens with very empathetic content, rather than deals and low prices. They note, “Maybe it’s time for a visit with friends, a golf getaway or a chance to rediscover your own surroundings,” which also points to the uptick in local stays. Only upon scrolling down does the message get into earning points and saving money.
Long vacations are also in major demand, as people are making up for canceled trips over the spring and are interested in taking an extended break from their “Groundhog Day” routines. Orlando vacations, while still down 38% year over year, ranked third as a destination for summer travel behind Las Vegas and Los Angeles – two “weekend getaway” destinations. Week-long trips to Orlando booked from July 1 to August 3 were up more than 15% over the same time last year. Honolulu is also seeing long trips being booked and with trips of seven days or more up almost 33% from the year before.
With so much new travel, overall hotel bookings are steadily coming back to pre-coronavirus levels. Leisure bookings have improved 11% in July over May and June. But, air travel lags , and so more people are choosing to drive to their trips. In San Francisco alone, short, drivable trips like Napa, Tahoe and Yosemite have increased from 15% of the total to 85% of the total from May and June to July. And smaller destinations like Norfolk, VA and Panama City, FL are gaining traction as people look for potentially quieter spots to get away.
However, travel restrictions come and go, so places like Honolulu, which is mostly an air travel destination, are particularly susceptible to shifts in demand. Driving destinations and destinations within the same state have a bit more staying power through changing regulations.
Planning for Q4
The summer weather and school vacation are certainly two important factors in the recent trends towards last-minute leisure travel. Once kids are back in school, families, in particular, will have less flexibility to hop down to Orlando for a week. This is likely to depress the hotel market a bit in September and October. People will also be watching for cases to rise again as the weather cools, and people head indoors, and back to school.
Similarly, there are many unknowns about typical winter vacations. Families might not be able to or comfortable traveling to Mexico or the Caribbean yet. Ski resorts might not reopen, or will reopen at limited capacity. These elements are likely to also create a bit of a pause in bookings during the early part of Q4.
As people start to learn what winter will look like, however, the appetite to get away will return. Key times like Thanksgiving weekend, December holidays and February break will likely see unusual activity based on last-minute travel and coronavirus restrictions. In other words, similar travel patterns that we see this summer could re-emerge for winter.
The unknowns leading into Q4 will require brands to keep their ears to the ground, and test a much wider variety of messaging to see what the real motivators are for travelers. Flexibility is key. The rebound will be fragmented geographically and upticks in demand will occur in bursts. Thriving in this environment requires a robust data strategy at the consumer and market level as well as the decision technologies to act upon the intelligence.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carolyn Corda
Chief Marketing Officer, Adara