News & Events, Travel

Vaccine rollout could entice rapid Travel plans

“Revenge travel” anyone?

words by: Natasha Marsh
Apr 10, 2021

According to Biden, a majority of America will be vaccinated by May 1. Although I’m excited about living in some type of normalcy again, I am worried that the sooner people are vaccinated, the sooner they will use it as an excuse to go crazy. Particularly with traveling.

 

The tourism industry suffered tremendously throughout the pandemic thus far but experts predict they will see bookings skyrocket in the coming weeks and months. They are deeming this new phenomenon as “revenge travel.” In other words, the travel itch is real when you’ve been cooped up for over 12 months and experts think this will cause people to live out all their canceled 2020 travel plans. Individuals are going to attempt to make up all the time, energy and fun they lost last year. With many young people having moved out of big cities to suburbs, they also predict visits to family members and friends will surge as well, in the smaller cities.

 

Pre-pandemic, a large percentage of young people spent the majority of their time climbing the ladder. Meaning, we didn’t jet off on our planned holidays and use up our PTO. We grinded at new jobs and tried to impress higher ups to get a new position — assuring ourselves Hawaii, or insert dream location, will always be there. Then the pandemic hit. And nothing, no destination, was possible anymore.

 

After all that sacrifice, we deserve all the travel plans we want. Personally, I’m really looking forward to connecting with my family and friends (safely) outside my immediate city, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I also think travelers will feel more inclined to splurge, which will be a good thing for local businesses and the tourism industry in general. The government is also scrambling to come up with a vaccine passport to make all of this possible.