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Now that spring has come and it looks like the end of the pandemic is near, many Americans are again planning a vacation – and are booking beach destinations in style, says Trivago.
The global online accommodation platform, based in Dusseldorf, Germany, has seen “clicks” – users clicking on travel offer links to other travel booking sites – growing steadily since the beginning of the year, growing by 27 % month-on-month in March, compared to 17% in January. (The increase in clicks indicates that more people are looking to book trips, according to Trivago.)
Most of those clicks were for trips to hot climates.
The main destinations for March 2021 tracked by Trivago included Miami Beach and Panama City Beach in Florida; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; and Cancún, Mexico. There were also trends among US travelers: San Juan, Puerto Rico and other destinations for fun and sun abroad, such as Playa Bavaro, in the Dominican Republic, and Playa del Carmen, in Mexico.
“With many Americans longing for safe getaways and warm weather, beach destinations have been the number one choice for travelers as the country reopens,” said Axel Hefer, CEO of Trivago. “In fact, our recent consumer travel survey found that nearly a quarter of American travelers’ idea of a ‘dream vacation’ after the pandemic is on a tropical island.”
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Hefer said that a year of roadblocks and further progress in the fight against Covid is behind the increase in interest in trips to sunny stretches of sand by the sea.
“The pent-up demand, as well as the significant progress in recent weeks regarding vaccination, has led Americans to seek spring break travel to coastal destinations where social distance is easy, as well as neighboring international cities like Cancún and Playa Bavaro” he said.
In other findings, Trivago said that domestic travel accounted for 79% of Americans’ clicks in February and March, and same-day and next-day travel remained the most popular to book – accounting for 14% of total clicks in March.