USA. Travel analytics company ForwardKeys has said that flight bookings for the start of the upcoming Independence Day weekend are just -16.9% behind the same day in 2019.
The company’s latest research outlines how recovery in US domestic travel is taking shape. The long weekend to mark Independence Day will be a new high point in the rebound, it noted, even amid a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases in some US states.
An analysis of new flight tickets issued between the start of the year and mid-June shows that the bottom of the market was reached during the first week of April. There has been a steady climb since, as bookings reached 42% of 2019 levels during the third week of June.
Closer analysis, by type of tickets issued, shows that the recovery is being driven mainly by leisure bookings, which have substantially outpaced business bookings since the collapse of the market in early March.
As of 23 June, the number of new US domestic air tickets issued for travel between 20 June and 18 July, two weeks before and after the Independence Day holiday, were -55.8% behind the equivalent period last year. However, as noted above, bookings for the start of this weekend were just -16.9% behind 2019.
Domestic tourism represented 4.5% of the US economy in 2019 – a trillion-dollar industry, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council.
ForwardKeys VP Insights Olivier Ponti said: “It’s inspiring to observe that a rebound is underway and that Independence Day is the high-water mark. However, a major unknown is how the COVID-19 outbreak will progress and how significantly the latest spikes could arrest the recovery in flight bookings.”
