U.S. Tourists Double Down on Overseas Vacations

Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, September 27. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

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Episode Notes

A new survey has found that “affluent” Americans are planning to take nearly twice as many international trips in the next 12 months, compared to before the pandemic. Some demographics are also ready to spend twice as much too.

The 2,000 respondents in a poll, called Portrait of American International Travelers and published by marketing agency MMGY, clearly feel their dollar will take them a lot further for their next trip, writes Corporate Travel Editor Matthew Parsons.

The survey, the third annual national poll of its kind, looked at the travel behaviors, spending habits, preferences and motivators of the respondents, and was carried out in July 2022. Since then the dollar has considerably strengthened against the euro and sterling.

Next up, hotel marketers are using short-form video campaigns on the social media app TikTok to score views from millions of potential guests. In many cases, reports Contributor Carley Thornell, this interest — revealed through the popularity of tags such as #smallluxuryhotels (more than 3 million views), #hoteldesign (more than 13 million views), and #besthotel (33 million views) — is prompting people to book trips.

Richard Hyde, managing director of Small Luxury Hotels, said that “TikTok is no longer considered a dance-trend app for teenagers. The platform is rapidly aging up. We’ve seen engagement from users of all ages on our Small Luxury Hotels of the World account.”

As the China-based viral video app becomes more sophisticated, the age of its demographic continues to rise along with the number of users. TikTok was the most downloaded app of 2021, with 656 million downloads.

We end with European low-cost carrier EasyJet, which on Monday tried to dispel the notion that achieving net-zero emissions will ultimately drive up costs for its flyers.

CEO Johan Lundgren, speaking during an event at EasyJet’s London Luton headquarters, said the move to net-zero emissions is important to keeping fares down rather than pushing them up as many fear. “The cost of carbon will be so expensive … if you don’t transition to zero emission technologies, I think that the taxes on carbon will only go one way,” he said.

Ned Russell, editor of Airline Weekly, a Skift brand reports that technologies that significantly reduce aviation emissions, like sustainable aviation fuels, are currently several times more expensive — or don’t exist in commercially viable forms — than their conventional, fossil fuel-based counterparts. Hence the drive by governments, with either incentives or mandates, to commercialize the technologies, and the rush by airlines and other industry players to invest in them.

Lundgren called on the UK government to develop regulations that reward and incentivize planemakers to produce zero-emissions aircraft, and airlines to adopt the technology.