PHOTO: Gen-Z (photo courtesy Tempura/iStock/Getty Images Plus)
Source: www.travelpulse.com, April 2022

Car-sharing company Avail recently released the results of a new study, which examined the current sentiment and behavior of travel consumers by generation.

For ‘The State of Travel in 2022’, Avail surveyed 2,000 Americans—Baby Boomers, Gen-X, Millennials and Gen-Z would-be travelers, in equal number—to discover how a pandemic and two years’ worth of travel restrictions have affected their desire to travel. Below, we’ve outlined some of the study’s key findings.

Increased travel spending:

— Gen-Zers are leading the charge in terms of returning to travel, and plan to spend more on travel in 2022 than any other generation with 72 percent saying they intend to spend more, or at least the same amount, this year than in pre-pandemic times.

— 72 percent of Gen-Zers are either already planning or are considering splurging on a really big trip in 2022, followed by Millennials (68 percent), Gen-Xers (60 percent) and Baby Boomers (51 percent).

 

Increased travel planning:

— The younger generations emerged as the most eager to travel more often than they used to, with 71 percent of Gen-Zers and 71 percent of Millennials saying they’re making plans to travel more, or the same amount, in 2022 than they did in the pre-COVID-19 era.

— Altogether, 69 percent of Americans across the generations are planning to travel more, or the same amount, this year as before the pandemic hit.

— 60 percent of respondents said they traveled less during COVID-19 than they did prior to the pandemic.

— 82 percent of Baby Boomers, 75% of Gen-Xers, and 73 percent of both Gen-Zers and Millennials plan on taking between one and five leisure trips within the coming year.

— As more of them retire and have open schedules, it makes sense that Baby Boomers were shown to be the most spontaneous travelers among the four generational groups, with 64 percent saying they can see themselves booking a month, or even less, in advance of their trips.

 

Factors affecting comfort levels:

— When combining the generations, 76 percent of all Americans said they agree that the widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines has strengthened their degree of comfort about traveling, with Millennials (77 percent) and Baby Boomers (77 percent) being the most reassured because of vaccines.

— Only a minority (31 percent) of Americans said that COVID-19 concerns could dissuade them from traveling for leisure purposes this year, with Baby Boomers (27 percent) and Gen-Xers (28 percent) proving to be the least frightened by COVID-19 issues.

— 69 percent of all respondents said that Russia’s current war being waged on Ukraine could prove to be a major reason why they avoid international travel in 2022. The breakdown of those who foresee the Russo-Ukrainian conflict impacting their plans was 63 percent of Gen-Xers, 70 percent of Gen-Zers, 71 percent of Baby Boomers and 73 percent of Millennials.

 

Generational similarities:

— Participants across all generational groups agreed that staying within their budget is the most challenging element of travel planning.

— Seeing family and friends is the number-one motivating factor for taking a trip this year among Gen-Zers, Millennials, Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers alike.

money is the biggest limiting factor with regard to traveling for leisure in 2022 — more than two times more limiting than safety and health concerns.

— Americans continue to prefer car travel over all other modes of transportation, across all generations. But, all groups also agreed that car rental costs are “just too expensive”, prompting them to consider new services, such as car-sharing.