U.S. Travelers Are Overwhelmingly Booking Last-minute Trips, According to Booking Sites

Americans wanting to take a trip aren’t wasting whenever, reserving hotels and flights almost immediately before they wish to head on a journey, according to information shared with Travel + Leisure from booking sites.

More than 70 percent of people who reserved a flight in May were looking to travel in May or June, according to Priceline. That comes as airports have seen a little rebound in traffic after COVID-19 decimated the market.

When it comes to reserving hotels, a spokeswoman for Travelocity shared that many Americans who made a reservation did so for the very same month– like booking June travel in June. This is a divergence from the site’s normal booking window, the spokesperson said, in which individuals usually book about a month prior to they plan to strike the road.

“General, we’re seeing most of travel need happening in the very same month or exact same week of when the trip is set to begin,” Mel Dohmen, a senior spokesperson at Travelocity, discussed to T+L in an e-mail, including: “As demand for travel boosts, we expect tourists will take advantage of new flexible reserving alternatives such as reserving hotels with complimentary cancellation, which would offer individuals peace of mind and the capability to cancel strategies closer to their journey’s start date.”

In reality, Dohmen stated the site’s information shows having the alternative of totally free cancellation is one of the most essential reserving aspects for about 90 percent of tourists.

While most of U.S. travelers are making last-minute reservations in general, there are regional differences. Compared to other states, those residing in the Northeast– like New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine– were more likely to book trips 2 to 3 months out, based on Travelocity’s booking data from the last two weeks in May. The same was real for Hawaii where a quarantine was recently extended for out-of-state travelers however will be lifted for those hopping in between islands.

Alternatively, tourists from the South and Southeast together with those in numerous Midwestern states like Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Minnesota were more most likely to book a week or less from when they want to travel. This might be due to take a trip being less restricted in these parts of the nation, Dohmen added.

When it comes to what future patterns will appear like, Dohmen stated it’s up in the air and “reserving windows are altering as we settle into this next phase of reopening.”