Over 37mn Americans to travel during Memorial Day weekend

Booking data also reveals that domestic travel and road trips remain the biggest drivers of travel recovery in the near term, with Orlando and Las Vegas as the top Memorial Day destinations this year.

Washington: More than 37 million Americans are expected to travel during the Memorial Day holiday weekend as US tourism has substantially picked up after more than a year of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The expected strong increase in demand from last year’s holiday, which fell during the early phase of the pandemic, still represents 13 per cent, or nearly 6 million, fewer travellers than the Memorial Day holiday in 2019.

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Booking data also reveals that domestic travel and road trips remain the biggest drivers of travel recovery in the near term, with Orlando and Las Vegas as the top Memorial Day destinations this year.

“As more people get the Covid-19 vaccine and consumer confidence grows, Americans are demonstrating a strong desire to travel this Memorial Day,” said Paula Twidale, AAA Travel’s senior vice-president.

With more than half of the US adult population vaccinated and new Covid cases plummeting, airline travel, hotel bookings and tourist attraction attendance is rebounding convincingly across most popular tourist destinations, according to Mark Vitner and Charlie Dougherty, economists at Wells Fargo Securities.

“The up-shift in travel is occurring alongside a significant ramp up in economic activity. Diminishing Covid risks, multiple rounds of fiscal stimulus and over a year’s worth of pent-up demand are all coming together to generate a surge in consumer spending,” the economists wrote Friday in an analysis.

Another factor is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) updated guidance that fully vaccinated people can travel domestically at low risk to themselves.