• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, January 13, 2022

Data analyzing consumer behavior confirms that people want something new, making now the perfect time for search advertisers and performance marketers to plan detailed campaigns to reach consumers showing an interest in travel.

Tripadvisor’s Travel in 2022: A Look Ahead report, created and published in partnership with Ipsos MORI, surveyed more than 10,000 consumers between the ages of 18 and 75 across the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, and Japan in November 2021.

The data suggests consumers are likely to travel for leisure in 2022, outpacing pre-pandemic reported travel levels.

Travelers also were asked about changes in their behavior with regard to how they intend to travel, and gain more value from future travel plans.

Respondents in Singapore, at 89%, were the most likely to say they will travel in 2022, followed by 85% of respondents in the U.K. Australia at 79% and the U.S. at 78% fell in the middle of the five markets surveyed. Japanese respondents, at 58%, were the least likely to say they will travel in 2022.

Hotel search data on Tripadvisor shows Australians, Singaporeans and Japanese travelers are planning to take longer trips in 2022, compared with 2020. Australians stayed in their destinations for about 3.6 days in 2020 but they plan to increase the number of days they stay away to 3.8 days in 2022.

Singaporean travelers are opting for 2.7 days in 2022, vs 1.9 days in 2020. And, while still short, Japanese travelers are upping their 2022 trip length to 1.6 days from 1.4 in 2020.

Travelers in the United States will spend fewer days at their destination. In the U.S., where the average consumer spent 4.4 days on vacation in 2019, their time away is expected to drop to 3.7 days in 2022. Those in the U.S. may take shorter vacations, but they are spending 29% more on average per booking.

In Germany, hotel searches show travelers spent an average of 6.1 days on holiday in 2019, but plan to reduce the number of days to 5.3. Spanish travelers who spent 4.7 days away in 2019 plan to spend 3.7 days traveling.

Plan to see more domestic than international travel, basically because of COVID-19 testing and isolation restrictions.

While travel precautions and restrictions are factors many travelers want to avoid, personal safety concerns post-pandemic is important, too.  Approximately 7 in 10 respondents in each of the markets said they look for destinations that have a low number of COVID-19 cases when making a decision on where to travel next. It’s largely about choosing the simpler and easier path.

The pandemic had an impact on what people consider to be most important when planning a trip. Three-thirds of Americans say it’s important to see new places when thinking about their future travel plans, nearly matching the 74% of Australians, 73% of Singaporeans and 70% of Britons who said the same.

Travelers are seeking new experiences in 2022. More than one-quarter of travelers in each market agree it’s more important now than before the pandemic to splurge on a big trip.

The opportunity to travel to somewhere new presents opportunities for brands trying to attract customers. Those opportunities range from search campaigns to connected television (CTV). Some 41% of all travelers surveyed in the United States, compared with 38% in UK, 46% in Australia, 34% in Japan, and 49% in Singapore said that traveling to a destination they’ve never been to before is more important to them now, compared to trips they took in 2019.

In the United States, roughly 3 in 10 Americans who traveled for leisure in 2019 say it’s more important now than before the pandemic to splurge on a big trip. Twenty-eight percent of Singaporean and Australian travelers and 25% of UK travelers said the same.

Guided cultural tours are also a big hit. In the United States, 22% of travelers said they plan to experience more guided cultural activities than they had pre-pandemic. And 3 in 10 American travelers said that they would do more self-guided cultural activities than they did in previous years. In the UK, that number falls slightly to 20% of travelers. In Australia and Singapore, 22% and 24% of travelers, respectively, said that they would plan to do more guided cultural travel in 2022 than they did pre-pandemic.

Travel-related companies might think they’re doing a good job keeping environments clean, but consumers would like them to take more safety measures, even as COVID cases drop. Some 63% of U.S. consumers would like to see more safety measures, followed by 67% UK, 70% Australia, 74% Japan, and 83% Singapore.