The new year in travel has begun on a positive note as a just completed survey by the Travel Experts host agency showed the majority of its advisors reporting as much as 80 percent of their clients have booked travel since the beginning of 2022 and less than 10 percent of their clients have cancelled trips already planned. Some of the advisors reported over 90 percent of their clients booking trips at this time.

“This is a welcomed positive trend in booking patterns, especially after the rush of cancellations at the end of 2021 as a result of the flare up of the Covid Omicron variant across the world,” said Sharon Fake, director of operations for Travel Experts.

The advisors have reported an average of 35 bookings in the first five weeks of 2022 with some reporting as many as 60 to 70 bookings in this period. As in previous surveys, Europe leads all other destinations in bookings for spring and summer 2022 as pent up demand continues to rule. Meanwhile, Caribbean and Mexico vacations lead the way for winter bookings taking place right now.

U.S. destinations in the Southeast and West, along with Africa and South America are the next popular vacation spots being booked by Travel Experts advisors at this time. But the picture is not completely bright as advisors are still having problems resulting from the pandemic.

Rebecca Wilson, Excellent Vacations Travel Service, Sun City West AZ said: “Concern about war and unrest in Europe, and Covid related complications while traveling are a problem. A majority of my clients are older and retired, so they are waiting until things are more back to normal before making new plans.”

“My biggest challenge is time,” said Emily Webber, We Travel Luxe, Nashville, TN, adding: “I am very busy with many clients wanting to book. It takes a lot of time in this new environment to get information back from our suppliers. We have long hold times and the turnaround time for a quote is far too long.”

Holly Lombardo, Holly Lombardo Travel, Atlanta, GA said: “I might take three hours to plan a trip and spend another four hours holding the client’s hands making sure they understand each requirement to be prepared for departure. It has become so time consuming, that I am having to turn new business away. I have already increased fees on all international air and land requests. But that may not be enough. The stress level to try and keep up with business, Covid related processes and traveler temperaments has me rethinking if there is a different way forward. Right now I’m their doctor, therapist, attorney, and insurance agent along with their travel advisor.”

Peggy Purtell, Purtell Travel, Milwaukee, Wisconsin said: “Last minute bookings are a problem due to inventory, people are waiting to see how things are on the ground in the destination before committing, where they used to book months out. In January I booked a couple of trips for clients that wanted to leave within four days for international trips, but we made it happen.”

Jolene Detillion, Your Travel Designer, Seattle, WA said: “The pace is pretty relentless right now. We added a new person to our team at the beginning of the year to assist with administration and concierge services. At this point in time we feel are currently at max capacity for annual travel subscribers as many are planning four to five trips for 2022 and it is only February and I do not want the service we pride ourselves on providing to suffer.”

On a very positive note Detillion added: “All in all, luxury travel is back and stronger than ever. Fingers crossed that nothing impacts travel drastically moving forward. However, we feel that we are in a much stronger position now to weather any storms than we were two years ago.”

Cruise Bookings

Cruise bookings are mixed and wave season has not been what was experienced in the past. “As a matter of fact, wave season has been more like a calm ripple rather than a wave of bookings for cruises, but we are now seeing a steady uptick as reported by our advisors,” said Fake.

Here is what some of Travel Experts’ advisors had to say:
“Wave season has not been the same as in the past, but “pace has picked up remarkably for both ocean and river cruises,” said Eileen Anderson, Journeys Afar, Raleigh, NC.
“Some clients are still booking cruises, but most are just holding on to cruises we booked last year hoping they will depart,” said Becky Lukovic, Bella Travel Planning, Alpharetta, GA.
“While we have a few clients still interested in cruising many are doing other things now as the constant change in sailing schedules became overly frustrating,” said Jolene Detillion.