Skift Take

Remote work is here to stay and its impact on travel is starting to grow significantly. Twenty-three percent of American remote workers in our September survey said they had taken long trips as a result of working remotely, a sharp increase from eight months ago. Travel companies need to take note of how to serve this rising travel segment.

The surge of the Delta variant didn’t make too much a dent to the recovering travel industry in the U.S. According to Skift Research’s newly released U.S. Travel Tracker: September 2021 Highlights report, 47 percent of Americans traveled in September, only a 1.7-percentage-point drop from a record-setting July.

With declining new cases and rising vaccination rates, the travel industry may have put the worst behind it again, for now.

One of the trends that stood out in the September survey is the steady increase of remote workers who have taken extended trips of more than 10 days as a result of working remotely. When Skift Research started to ask the question in February, only 11 percent of surveyed remote workers said they had taken long trips because of remote work flexibility.

By early October, the number has risen to 23 percent. With more companies joining the flock to allow employees to work remotely – Amazon being the most recent high-profile case – we are expecting to see more profound changes happening to travel from this remote work trend.   

Skift Research introduced a monthly U.S. travel tracking survey in January 2020 to examine the travel penetration rates and detailed travel behavior of the U.S. population. In addition to the factual travel occurrences, we also asked respondents their perceptions on the macro-level economic condition as well their personal financial and travel outlook. We switched the survey to every other month in 2021. As we move through different phases of Covid-19, our tracking survey captures the fluctuations of consumer travel behavior and intent in real time.

In our newly released U.S. Travel Tracker: September 2021 report, we highlight new and ongoing trends in travel incidences, consumer sentiments and future travel intents in the pandemic world, distilled from our September Travel Tracker survey.

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What You’ll Learn From This Report

  • Travel incidences, January 2020– September 2021
  • September travel highlights
  • Covid-19 impacted travel, October 2020–September 2021
  • Changing consumer sentiments on the economic outlook, February 2020–October 2021
  • Consumer intent for the remainder of 2021 travel
  • Remote work trend and its impact on travel and mobility
  • How COVID-19 vaccination might impact travel

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This is the latest in a series of reports and data products that Skift Research puts out to help you analyze the impact of the coronavirus on the travel industry. Tap into the opinions and insights of our seasoned network of staffers and contributors. Over 200 hours of desk research, data collection, and/or analysis goes into each report.

After you subscribe, you will gain access to our entire vault of reports conducted on topics ranging from technology to marketing strategy to deep dives on key travel brands. You will also be able to access our proprietary Skift Recovery Index and Skift Health Score data and reports.

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Tags: consumer behavior, consumer sentiment, skift research, Travel Trends, traveltracker

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