Cant Wait to Get Backon the Road Again
Heather Owen and Jason Allsopp: British Columbians can't wait to get on the road again
Opinion: As pandemic concerns lift, British Columbians are making plans to travel
Travel, without a doubt, was one of the main activities we collectively stopped doing during the COVID-19 pandemic. While this decision was important for public health, it had devastating consequences for the travel sector.
With the current lightened restrictions in Canada and in many parts of the world, we wondered if British Columbians are planning to blow the dust off their suitcases and leave their homes for a while.
In a recent Leger survey, we learned that seven in 10 British Columbians have travel plans between today and Labour Day. Among those packing their bags, 64 per cent are planning multiple trips.
When we asked about where their most significant trip will take them, 43 per cent say they will visit places in B.C., 22 per cent will head to other parts of Canada, 19 per cent will cross into the United States and 16 per cent will explore other parts of the world.
The airline industry is sure to benefit from the year-over-year increase in travel plans: In 2021, 16 per cent of B.C. summer travellers said they were flying to their destinations; this year the number has more than doubled to 38 per cent.
Conversely, only 51 per cent of those surveyed are planning car trips, compared to 76 per cent last year.
When these travellers get to where they are going, most will stay in paid accommodations regardless of whether they are travelling domestically (83 per cent) or outside of Canada (87 per cent).
The motivation for our respondents' travels? To spend time with people we care about. Forty-five per cent of trips will be to see friends and family and 42 per cent will be family vacations. Only three per cent of planned trips reported in our survey are for work, raising questions about the rebound of business travel.
Seventy-nine per cent of British Columbians said they are confident that their travel plans will proceed without COVID-19 interruptions. It is also worth noting that — despite the vaccine rollout and reduced severity of virus variants — this confidence number is only slightly higher than it was last year (76 per cent).
This willingness to make travel plans may, in large part, be because British Columbians are simply feeling better about their lives and are less concerned about pandemic risks. In the April 2022 edition of Leger's ongoing North American Tracker about attitudes surrounding the pandemic, 55 per cent of British Columbians said "the worst of the pandemic is behind us" – up from 19 per cent in January of this year. Additionally, the way people feel is on the uptick, with 35 per cent of British Columbians reporting their mental health as "excellent" or "very good," compared to 29 per cent at the start of the year.
British Columbians' decisions to get out to explore the world this summer can be met with optimism by the hard-hit travel sector. So often, when we are at the end of something, we are at the beginning of something else. We are curious to see how the travel industry will evolve to meet the customers of the next-normal.
Heather Owen and Jason Allsopp are both vice-presidents in Leger's Vancouver office. The survey data is from Leger's B.C. Omnibus Studies, conducted from April 1 3, 2022 among 1,003 British Columbians and from Leger's North American Tracker collected Jan. 7-9 and April 8-10 among 1,547 and 1,539 Canadians, respectively. For more information, visit leger360.com
Leger invites you to participate in future public opinion surveys by clicking here.
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Source: https://theprovince.com/opinion/british-columbians-cant-wait-to-get-on-the-road-again
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