#Inflation and Tourism in the U.S. in 2022

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Inflation and Tourism in the U.S. in 2022

The travel restrictions are off, and after two years of failed summer trips and entire vacations gone awry, Americans wish to finally go out and enjoy the summer holidays. The thing is, however, that inflation and tourism aren’t best bedfellows. The prices of traveling have had quite a considerable effect on tourism and our ability to travel without nervously checking our wallets. In this article, we’ll take a look at a study covered by Passport Photo Online on the impact of inflation on tourism and travel in 2022.

You will learn how much our plans changed amid inflation, what are its main effects and the numbers behind this season’s vacations.

Traveling’s become a costly endeavor

Summer trips have become more costly if we compare prices with the ones we dealt with when scheduling trips back in 2019. We’ve come to the point where we need to dig deeper in our wallets to finalize our dream vacations or even change the plans altogether.

The findings mentioned in the study, based on the input of 1000+ Americans, we get a clear idea of how much inflation hit our wallets.

The soaring prices have resulted in 88% of vacationers downgrading their plans;
The majority of U.S. travelers had to increase their budget by 11-20% to proceed with their initial plans;
A whopping 85% of Americans decided to seek alternative means of transportation because of high airplane ticket prices;
As much as 72% of respondents confirmed they are likely to further cut back on travel altogether in 2022 if the inflation continues;
Still, the vast majority of Americans (96%) still want to travel in 2022, despite the rising costs of tourism.

It comes as no surprise, then, when you consider that most Americans believe $3,000 is the limit of how much they’d spend on a trip per person.

However, the amount of money Americans are prepared to spend per single person is actually quite a debatable topic. There’s no magic number that Americans agree upon in regards to limiting spending per person. In truth, there’s very little difference in numbers (3 percentage points) between those who think $500-$1,000 is enough and those who want to up their vacation game and spend up to $3000.

How we’re cutting the costs

When the prices go up, and Americans assess travel plans and budgets they’re about to work with, there’s plenty of room to make adjustments. You can save money in many ways, and when asked about the exact methods of cutting the costs of 2022’s summer trips, Americans proved to be quite creative.

The most common answers were predictable yet still interesting, with the most claiming they will:

travel shorter distances;
take fewer trips;
spend less money on food;
or plan fewer activities.

We still want more than one trip, though

Moreover, according to the study, most respondents (32%) want to organize more than one trip during the summer season, even though inflation has gone up to 8.6% in the past year. It would seem that the American’s will to travel, strengthened by previous restrictions and the inability to finalize dream trips in the last two years, is too strong to ignore.

It’s an interesting finding if we consider that barely 15% believe one trip is perfectly fine and quite enough.

Roughly 1 in 10 Americans still plan to take full advantage of 2022’s summer vacation and plan five or even more trips despite inflation and its effects on prices. We’ve got some big spenders here, too, it seems.

Transportation amid inflation

As we’ve already established, Americans still want to travel. Even if that means reassessing the trip budget and changing previously-set plans, they’re going for it, staying clear of air travel.

Because the prices of airplane tickets have gone up, Americans decided to stay clear of airports and seek transportation by land or sea. What’s the most interesting, however, is that this decision has pushed them into trying their luck with electric cars.

According to the survey, the vast majority of Americans (75%) have chosen electric cars to get to their summer destinations, leaving trains, buses, and ships positioned behind them in terms of popularity.

It’s possibly a very good trend that will convince U.S. citizens to switch to electric cars for good. Who knows? That’d be a nice side-effect, right?

Why we won’t travel in 2022

Even though, as we’ve already mentioned, the vast majority of Americans have decided to still go on vacation in 2022, there are plenty of reasons why some of them still prefer to sit this summer out.

The most important reason to opt out of a summer trip in 2022 (49%) is the price such a voyage might cost. It’s the most significant argument against vacationing this year, but not by a long shot since Americans are still not over the fear of COVID-19. Almost equally as many (48%) see pandemic-related concerns are still viable.

Work doesn’t allow us time for a vacation

As the study explored other reasons that made U.S. citizens decide against vacationing in 2022, as much as 37% claimed their work wouldn’t allow them enough time to go on a trip.

You can say that one of the reasons we sometimes don’t want to go on vacation is that we don’t want to return to work and have to deal with all the overdue projects and other responsibilities. That is, however, one of the least important work-related reasons why Americans don’t wish to travel.

In fact, it is the current workload that effectively prevents U.S. citizens from going on vacation, with 51% of respondents in the study confirming it.

Another issue the survey-takers pointed at is that they were pressured not to take vacation days. That’s a very worrying sign of just how much of an issue is the current hustle culture.

Summary

As you can see, inflation has really had its toll on 2022’s summer tourism. The prices have gone up, which caused all of us to reevaluate our plans. We started to reassess our trip budgets, went on to seek alternative means of transportation, and some of us outright opted against vacationing this summer.

Still, however, after two years of restrictions due to the pandemic, the majority of Americans have agreed upon one thing for sure – you’ve got to take advantage of this year’s summer one way or another.

by Michał Laszuk

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