Okay, well Labor Day capped off what was a
bit of a turbulent summer travel season. The holiday
weekend seen a surge though these past few days in
air travelers with the T. S. A.
Screening more people than the same weekend in 2019 before
the pandemic. So what does it mean for expected
travel trends for the upcoming fall season and beyond?
Well joining now is Haley burly economist at the online
travel agency Hopper. Haley thanks so much for coming
on the show. I know data released today saying
that the T. S. A. Did screen
nearly 8.7 million people over this weekend. What do
you think led to the jump? And how does
it compare to the level that Hopper was expecting?
We've seen pretty consistently this year. That demand from
travelers for those leisure trips is incredibly high. We
saw record breaking memorial day coming out of pandemic close
. 4th of July was huge. So not surprised
to see it and you'd surge and demand over Labor
Day. And it's great to see we're seeing despite
higher costs this year than in many years prior americans
are resilient. They're willing to pay a bit more
to go on these vacations or to visit family that
they haven't seen in two plus years. Um I
know a lot of people happy to be reunited with
loved ones, enjoy the holiday weekend as well.
Haley and of course take some time off to celebrate
all the hard work that we've been putting in.
What might this indicate as to demand travel demand that
you anticipate this fall. We're expecting demand to remain
high. Typically the fall season is a little bit
softer in terms of demand. We see prices come
down it's a great time to get really good deals
but we'll see that demand ramp back up very quickly
as we head into late october as people start planning
for their holiday trips. So we can see Little
bit of a softness in demand the next couple of
weeks but it won't last long and neither will the
really low prices were expecting airfare as low as about
$240 round trip for September and October trips. Just
over$750 for those international getaways. Yeah. Now
what about people looking to book for the holidays?
Do you think that they should be getting on that
asap. Yes it's time to start planning your holiday
trips. It may feel way too early but start
monitoring prices now prices are volatile especially for the holidays
you start monitoring now it gives you time to see
how high will the price go. Will there be
a sporadic price drop or a sale on my destination
? Use the price monitoring tool like hopper. So
you're getting live notifications of what the prices look like
for your holiday trip. But expect that you'll book
by the week of october 10th early today october after
that prices will rise on average for both thanksgiving and
christmas trips. Um I know that I've already booked
. My christmas flights expensive but honestly not as bad
as I paid for thanksgiving last year. So I
guess I would take that as a win. Haley
, I did plan in advance this year, but
I would ask you specifically when it comes to business
travel, what the expectations are for those lucrative business
travel clients coming this fall. You know, we've
seen that business travel has recovered more slowly than leisure
travel. Leisure really came right out of the gate
starting in March of this year. But business travel
has come back slower than leisure travel and we are
expecting to see continued re growth of the business travel
sector. So those higher class, higher price seats
in the airplanes as well as more of the week
They travel. So we hope to see that return
. But since capacity is still below 2019 levels for
many airlines not having the full leisure and business travel
back is actually creating a little bit more supply for
those leisure travelers to scoop up what are some of
the top destinations Haley that people have on the radar
that they're looking to see and go to this this
fall. Outdoor destinations in the US are by far
the most popular. We're seeing a lot of demand
for beach vacations. Think hawaii the Carolinas destinations in
florida and southeast Asia is hugely popular this fall.
We're seeing Indonesia Vietnam going a little bit further to
Australia even are hugely hugely popular in part because these
are roots that are only recently over. They've been
closed or have had very capacity even as recently as
just 23 months ago. So people getting those big
vacations in, but also many people visiting family or
friends in those regions probably for the first time in
a few years. So we've seen certainly Hayley since
travel has started to rebound in the wake of this
pandemic, a lot of flight disruptions right, caused
by weather staffing shortages, Covid uh you name it
, how should travelers prepare for any potential disruptions this
fallen holiday period and any tips that you would give
them. Perhaps buying that insurance policy is something they
should or should not do. We have seen huge
volumes of disruption. Now, the good news is
that september and october are typically periods where there are
fewer delays and fewer cancelations were out of those peak
summer months. We're out of the long weekends that
carol a lot of demand for summer travel. So
we should see some relief but we're still seeing about
20% of flights being delayed and anywhere from 1 to
3 flights being canceled. So preparation is key.
If you have not booked a flight yet, Consider
including a disruption protection product. We offer this on
hopper, it's essentially rapid rebooking if you are missing
a connection being canceled about$34 and one in five
customers are adding it when they book, it protects
you against standing in that long customer service line,
potentially not getting on another flight if you miss yours
for any reason. So we are seeing much more
demand for those kinds of products buyer beware of insurance
. Oftentimes traditional travel insurance is medical coverage. It
helps you if you break your leg while in a
foreign country or need medical assistance. It's a great
product. But know why you're buying it. If
you're worried about disruptions, make sure that that's included
. Oftentimes it's not a part of a traditional insurance
product. Okay, Hayley Berg has such good insight
there. Hailey is the lead economist at Hopper.
Thank you.