Limit their travel plans for summer the citizens of USAwhether they are flights or road trips or waiting to make a booking only if the price is advantageous, a trend that testifies to deceleration of its industry tourism.
Summer hotel reservations are either reduced or unchanged compared to last year and airlines are also declining although ticket prices have also fallen as financial concerns are triggering a cut in tourism spending. Travel companies including Delta Air Lines and Marriott International, as well as Booking Holdings online travel company have withdrawn or reviewed their annual forecasts for 2025 as demand decreases in the US.
Airbnb highlights the shrinkage of the reservation window as consumers adopt a “let’s wait” stop and make a booking close to the date of their trip.
This has limited the forecasts of companies for the second half of the year.
In early April, Delta said it was an early forecast for the whole year given macroeconomic uncertainty.
For its part, United Airlines estimated that there is a serious chance that bookings will be reduced.
“It is very clear that consumers are expecting to make decisions, even for the summer,” said Southwest Airlines chief executive, Robert Jordan at the annual Bernstein Strategic Decision Conference at the end of May, adding that demand was stable but lower than expected.
Summer aircraft from the US are reduced by 10% compared to the same period a year ago, according to Flighthub, an online travel agency, although airline ticket prices have declined.
“You can’t hold an air seat on a warehouse shelf. If you don’t sell it the next day the plane flew, it is gone,” Steve Hafner, chief executive of Kayak, a book search engine owned by Booking Holdings, told Reuters.
On average, summer ticket prices decreased by 7% with flights to distant destinations, such as Sydney, Australia, being 23% cheaper than just a year ago, according to Kayak.
Summer hotel reservations in large American cities are unchanged to reduced compared to a year earlier, according to Costar data.
Prices on average rooms are expected to rise by almost 1.3% in 2025 from an increase of 1.8% in 2024.
“Travels are clearly under pressure because people do not feel as comfortable as they once felt,” explains Michael Chandwick, Managing Director of Fiscal Wisdom Wealth Management.
Weaker dollar
Travelers find easier opportunities, such as the third night free for two -day stay as hoteliers seek to fill the rooms, says Jan Freitag of the Costar Group.
This is looking forward to Jackie Lafeti.
Her plans for summer vacations have changed: from the possibility of a family holiday in Hawaii or Florida, her hometown, the state of Florida.
“When we analyzed the cost of flights, hotel and car rental, it seemed expensive, it was absurd,” says Lafeti, Director of Public Relations Company in Los Angeles.
The dollar’s weakness has led to the cost of holidays abroad.
In March, US travelers asked by Deloitte responded that they were planning to increase their summer holiday budget by 13%. In April, Deloitte’s survey found that the Americans were planning to spend about the same amount as last year.
The dollar has weakened by about 10% since mid -January, when it was at its best level of the last two years.
According to Kiratz Punsal, Managing Director of Ensuite Collection, a luxury travel company, his customers who had reserved last year for long trips to Europe, whether they will stay in the US this year or will go to closest destinations such as Canada and Karavi.
“Maybe we go abroad at the end of summer. If we do this, it will be last -minute if we find cheaper flights, “says 28 -year -old Rachel Camppetsa, an actress and gymnastics teacher in New Jersey. For the time being, her only summer plans are in Martha Vinyard in neighboring Massachusetts.
Source: RES – EIA