Research undertaken by ForwardKeys, the travel analytics firm, reveals that despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the collapse in aviation, many Americans are planning a last-minute return to the skies this Thanksgiving, travelling to be with their families at home; taking a break in sunny Florida or hitting the slopes.
Olivier Ponti, VP Insights at ForwardKeys explained what’s happening: “The COVID-19 crisis has decimated international air travel and badly damaged domestic air travel. In the past three weeks, we have seen the pace of bookings decrease and that correlates with the third wave of the virus. However, there are a couple of highly resilient periods: Christmas and Thanksgiving, where bookings have not slowed down and are relatively much stronger than they are for the rest of the year.”
Flight tickets issued in the week commencing 8th November, for travel over the Thanksgiving period (departures from 19th – 25th November) surged to 74.5% of last year’s volumes.
Top US Cities for Thanksgiving
In a ranking of major US domestic destinations this Thanksgiving (ie: destinations with at least 1.0% share of domestic flight bookings), many of the most resilient are family holiday hotspots.
In order of resilience benchmarked against 2019, Fort Myers in Florida leads the list; as of 14th November, bookings for travel over the Thanksgiving period (departures from 19th – 25th November), were 11.9% behind last year’s levels. It is followed by another sunshine destination, Tampa, where bookings are 14.2% behind.
The next three most resilient places are popular for skiing, Salt Lake City Utah, 23.5% behind, Phoenix Arizona, 30.0% behind, which is driving distance from the Arizona Snow Bowl and Denver, Colorado, 32.1% behind.
The next five cities in descending order of resilience are Miami, 33.5% behind; Orlando, the home of several iconic theme parks, 33.9% behind; Kahului, 35.4% behind; Dallas, 38.6% behind; and Las Vegas, 40.6% behind.
To learn more about the data behind this article and what ForwardKeys has to offer, visit http://forwardkeys.com.
Sign up to receive our stories in your inbox.
Data is changing the speed of business. Investors, Corporations, and Governments are buying new, differentiated data to gain visibility make better decisions. Don't fall behind. Let us help.
Sign up to receive our stories in your inbox.
Data is changing the speed of business. Investors, Corporations, and Governments are buying new, differentiated data to gain visibility make better decisions. Don't fall behind. Let us help.
