Today's Takeaways
From SCT's director of marketing systems & insights, Ariane Hiltebrand
This week’s traveler sentiment update by Destination Analysts reveals that the outlook for summer travel grew even stronger: About 87% of American travelers expect to be taking trips this summer, be it a vacation, visiting friends or relatives, business trip or meeting at a conference.
Top Points
From Destination Analysts' Travel Sentiment Report
Destination Analysts Key Findings to Know
From Destination Analysts' Travel Sentiment Report
  • Nearly 7-in-10 American travelers have or plan to get vaccinated from COVID-19. Just over half (51.5%) of American travelers report now being fully vaccinated—and nearly 90% of these vaccinated travelers are now comfortable with the idea of traveling, another pandemic record.

  • A record-high 26.9% say they “disagree” that they don’t want tourists coming to town, and those agreeing with this sentiment dropped to a low of 39.8%.

  • Travel readiness hit a pandemic-record 77.0% this week. Now 73.5% of American travelers say they have high levels of excitement about travel this year, up from 65.0% last week.

  • 76.5% expect to travel in the next 3 months, and anticipated travel spending in this time frame reached a record $1,768.

  • 49.6% agree that travel companies will keep prices “reasonable” this summer, and 40.4% even feel it will be a “buyer’s market” this summer. Despite over two-thirds of travelers expecting it to be busy for air travel and in hotels, over 40% expect prices for airfare and lodging to be lower than normal. And discounts and deals as a travel motivator hit a pandemic-record 55.5%.

  • The top 3 most common desires for travel this year (notably different from 2020): Chill-out/Decompress, Experience Beautiful Places, Do New things/Visit New Places.

  • Nearly a quarter of all travelers—and well over a third of Millennial and younger travelers—report using digital influencers as part of their travel process, primarily those who are honest, provide new ideas and specialize. The most common trip decisions influencer-users were motivated by these personalities to make were for destinations to visit, restaurants and hotels.
Website Insights for sonomacounty.com
During the period of April 23-29, the top content people were engaging with on the website was: digital guide and print map order page, homepage, wineries, glamping, coronavirus page, outdoor activities, restaurants, Mother’s Day, and wellness content. Our blog saw traffic for pop up restaurants, wine tasting pass, and 12 must-try tacos.

San Francisco is #1 and represents 12% of the total traffic this past week. Los Angeles is #3, San José is #4, Sacramento is #6, Oakland moved up to #7. We see 5 out-of-state cities in the top 25: New York, Seattle, Chicago, Phoenix, and Dallas.
Special Monthly Feature
Occupancy Comparison of Hotel & Short Term Lodging
Things to note:
 
  • The dark blue line represents Hotels, and light blue line Short Term Lodging. 
  • Hotel occupancy data is from STR.
  • Short Term Lodging data is from AirDNA. 

Insights:
 
Hotel performance in March continued to improve as room nights grew to 128.6K, leading occupancy to climb to 56.7% (roughly 15 ppt under March 2019). Increases in hotel demand and ADR continue to close the gap to 2019 levels bringing in $18.8m in room revenue.

Short-term rental demand increased to 41.3K room nights, a 30.6% increase over last year and a 7% increase over March 2019. The demand increase combined with the 30.2% increase in ADR resulted in $18.3m in revenue, nearly equal to hotel room revenue.
STR Tracking for Sonoma County
Things to Note:

  • With hotels having been closed due to the pandemic around this time last year, percentages will continue to be comparatively high in the coming weeks and months. 
  • STR is comparing “Weekly Year Over Year.”
  • 52 of the county’s 127 hotels report to STR.
  • The average from other destinations includes: Napa, Palm Springs, Monterey, South Lake Tahoe, and Vallejo/Napa Valley.
  • For more information on how data is calculated due to hotel closures, please refer to this document.
Smith Travel Research (STR) is the recognized leader in hospitality industry benchmarking around the globe. Powered by the world's largest hotel data sample, they deliver confidential data, accurate and actionable insights, and comprehensive solutions to empower decisions. Discover how STR collects data, how it is calculated, and a glossary of terms, by clicking here.