Europeans still keen to travel as soon as COVID-19 pandemic is over

Aurel Constantin 18/03/2020 | 10:35

More than half of Europeans are still planning to travel between May and September 2020, as long as their destinations won’t be in quarantine. Yet, many have already cut travel budget by more than 40 percent.

As the days pass and more and more people are trying to stay inside when possible, everyone is wondering how the travel industry will adapt to the new situation and what they should expect in the upcoming seasons. To help understand what Europeans` plans are for their next holidays, LuggageHero – the luggage storage provider in 40 European and North American cities – conducted an extensive survey and is sharing the results.

Based on its analysis of answers given by the European participants, the Danish company learned that travelers do not widely cancel their plans, but just postpone them a bit until the situation becomes clearer: 44 percent said that they will not change their travel itinerary for trips scheduled for May onward. The worldwide average percentage is also close: 50 percent.

Travel plans in the very near future

61 percent of the Europeans participating in the survey had a trip planned for March-April and COVID-19 had a huge impact, as expected. Moreover, 20 percent said their travels were planned as a couple and 9 percent said they were supposed to travel with their family, so the actual impact would be even higher.

As the situation is still unclear, many people (47 percent) have already cancelled their bookings and another 32 percent are about to do so. Among those who will still go to their planned destinations, many said they will try to avoid public transportation and big cities and will focus on natural landscapes, far from crowded places.

Travel plans after the next 2 months

When it comes to trips to be made starting from May 2020, Europeans remain hopeful and are keeping their travel plans on: 56 percent said they will still visit their destinations as long as there won’t be any quarantines that would interfere. Only a very small percentage (8 percent) already cancelled their trips planned for May-September.

As many confirmed, they are not even considering changing their travel itinerary after reaching their holiday destination and will still visit the places they want to see, but some (32 percent) will try to avoid public transportation or big cities in order to stay safer. Some 17 percent said they plan to stick closer to home and stay inside their own countries, so they can better evaluate the risks taken.

Budgetwise, Europeans are adapting to the current situation and are redrawing their expenses, emphasizing the economic impact personally felt by travelers. Only 46 percent of the respondents said they will have the same holiday budget for 2020 and close to a quarter of them will cut their travel costs by more than 40 percent.

“The Coronavirus leads to postponing and not canceling of the trips. Even if the current situation has a great impact due to travel restrictions, the public is still committed to their holiday plans. Demand will come back stronger than ever once the situation is over. We should consider this time an opportunity to think about our daily routine and what we can learn about these changes so we can go on stronger, wiser, and ready to enjoy our travels even more. And LuggageHero will definitely keep giving a hand in order to achieve these goals,” said Jannik Lawaetz, CEO at LuggageHero.

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