SALT LAKE CITY — Italy didn’t happen, but Hawaii did.
And now, with some states cautiously opening their doors to tourists again, Stephanie Smith and her husband are thinking about a September trip to the West Coast to celebrate their 10th anniversary.
“The flights are so cheap right now; it’s hard to pass up on that,” she said.
Smith, who works for Intermountain Healthcare, is among a growing number of Americans who are peeking past the safety of their homes and considering traveling again.
Travel Market Report, an industry publication, reported this week that nearly three-quarters of American travelers are planning their next trip, even as the novel coronavirus continues to kill thousands of people each week in the U.S. Many countries’ borders remain closed.
The resumption of travel can’t come soon enough for people in the travel industry, which is among the hardest hit by the pandemic. Hotels, airlines and restaurants are reporting huge losses, as are car-rental companies and businesses that help arrange trips.
Krista Mayne, co-owner of Wasatch Travel in Heber City, Utah, said she lost 80% of her annual business in the past two months. And national companies such as Tripadvisor, headquartered near Boston, are laying off employees and shuttering offices.
With the price of oil at historic lows and travel-related businesses struggling, good deals abound. But is it smart to be booking a family vacation right now? Here’s what some industry experts are saying.
Signs of life
Richard Snelgrove, owner and president of Snelgrove Travel Center, headquartered in Layton, Utah, said that for about four weeks, beginning the second week of March, business was “totally dead in terms of new bookings.”
“We were very busy, but all of our time was spent making changes for customers we had booked months ago.” During that time, Snelgrove’s company refunded or rebooked about $1.3 million in travel.
But in the past 10 days, he said, people have started calling about future trips.
“Every day, we’re getting calls and emails from people inquiring about cruises, Hawaii, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica. I had one yesterday for Rome, and this is for travel this year,” he said.
Italy, which has Europe’s highest death toll from COVID-19, second only to the United States, began a national lockdown March 10, shortly before the U.S. Department of State issued an advisory urging Americans not to travel abroad.
Since then, air travel has plunged by 95%, and some airlines are seeking federal permission to suspend flights to markets that include Atlanta, Detroit and Seattle.
Seeking to assure passengers that air travel is safe, airlines have introduced new policies. JetBlue was the first to announce that it would require masks for all passengers; others soon followed suit. An airline in China is letting fliers buy all the seats around them for an extra $226. Others promise an empty middle seat between travelers.
Hotels, meanwhile, are ramping up cleaning and sanitizing of rooms and public spaces. Marriott, for example, has announced its properties will spray rooms with hospital-grade disinfectant and promises other measures, such as contact-less room service.
Still, a recent Harris Poll found that only one-third of Americans plan to stay in a hotel this summer, and only 28% said they will be ready to fly after infection rates subside in the U.S.
‘We’ll stay cautious’
The behavior of individuals, like the rules of society, is largely determined by our comfort with risk, said Snelgrove, owner of Snelgrove Travel Center. For example, Americans have decided they want speed limits above 60 miles per hour on interstates, even though highway deaths would drop if the speed limit was 30.
Similarly, he said, travelers will venture forward based on how comfortable they are with risk.
“You’ll have those consumers that will want to close the doors, hunker down long-term. They’re going to be the last ones to surface,” he said. “We have other customers — they’re starting to come out right now — who have had it. They can’t tolerate any more of this cabin fever; they’re saying, ‘We’re getting out of here.’”
And although people 60 and older are more at risk of dying from COVID-19, that doesn’t mean only young people have the travel itch, Snelgrove said. One client in his mid-90s is scheduled for a cruise in June. “He’s been offered the chance to cancel, but he said, ‘No way, I’m going. The only way I’m not going is if the cruise line cancels’.
“Then you have other people who are convinced the virus is going to get them.”
Smith, the Intermountain employee, had been planning her family’s trip to Italy for more than six months. Eight people were going, and their vacation schedules had been meticulously arranged so they could see Rome, Venice and Florence for the first time. That trip fell apart, one city at a time, but with Mayne’s help, the Smiths were able to recoup about 90% of the cost of the trip in vouchers and credits, which they used for a trip to Hawaii just before that state issued a stay-at-home order.
It was still a huge disappointment to cancel the Italy trip, and Smith doubts it will ever be rescheduled, given how difficult it was to arrange simultaneous vacations with her adult children. But at least they got in a trip.
“It wasn’t the vacation I wanted, but it was the vacation I needed,” she said.
As for the future, Smith and her husband are keeping an eye on flights to Seattle, thinking about renting a car and driving down the West Coast to celebrate their anniversary in September. But she hasn’t booked it yet. “We’ll stay cautious,” she said.
Like Smith, Mayne is wary about the next few months, even though some states, including Florida and Georgia, have reopened their beaches and are allowing vacation rentals.
With an incubation period that could be as long as two weeks, the novel coronavirus could surge in states that have reopened, leaving travelers to recalculate their comfort with risk. And even though there are many travel deals right now, some fliers may find it difficult to get where they want to go because there are so few scheduled flights, Mayne said.
People who want to travel internationally are up against even more obstacles, with the U.S. travel advisory still in place, and the State Department not issuing or renewing passports right now except in cases of “life-or-death emergency.”
But that doesn’t mean international travel isn’t happening.
Snelgrove said he has clients going to Florence, Italy, in three weeks. “Their attitude is, ‘It’s a good time to go, there are no tourists’.”
Even cruises still appeal to some travelers, even though 54 cruise ships worldwide reported coronavirus cases, and there have been more than 2,500 cases and 65 deaths tied to cruise vacations, according to the Miami Herald.
Snelgrove said he just booked a four-day Carnival cruise at less than $400 for two people, including taxes. In fact, the taxes cost more than the cruise itself.
For people who want to snag good deals, travel experts say to book now, but to make sure that you purchase trip insurance that allows cancellation for any reason. “There are some policies we’ve found that said ‘cancel for any reason’ but then had a special clause that said ‘except for a pandemic’,” Mayne said. “More than ever, you need to read the fine print and know what you’re signing.”
Also, thoroughly research the pandemic policies in place where you are going, lest you spend your entire vacation in a hotel room. Hawaii, Massachusetts and Maine, for example, currently require incoming travelers to self-quarantine for 14 days.
As for Disney, the resorts have not yet announced reopening dates, although they’re consoling travelers by releasing recipes of popular treats, like Dole Whip.
Snelgrove recommends that people who want to go to Disney this year block out their desired dates and keep an eye out for park announcements. “We can sell you tickets and a package the day before you plan on going,” he said.
He also put in a plug for home-grown travel agencies as the country struggles with the financial devastation of the pandemic. “It’s a good way to help the local economy as we recover from this: Buy local. Do your research on the internet, but before you buy, go to local agencies and see if they can beat the price. And in most cases, they will,” he said.