Americans Traveling Abroad Hits a Pandemic High: New Skift Research
Skift Take
Despite the surge of Omicron, 45 percent of Americans traveled in December. In particular, nearly 6 percent of all December trips were to another country, marking the highest rate since the pandemic started. And looking ahead to 2022, Americans are optimistic about traveling more.
The U.S. travel sector took a blow from Omicron, but the effect was mild. According to Skift Research's newly released U.S. Travel Tracker: December 2021 Highlights report, 45 percent of Americans traveled in December. Despite the typical holiday travel season, this was 2 percentage points lower than September, when the summer vacation was wrapping up.
Omicron was clearly behind this dip. However, if we compare the number to the 46 percent travel rate in January 2020, before the pandemic hit, and the 29 percent travel rate in December 2020, when Delta was spreading wildly in the country, we see a much m
