Research - Virginia Tourism Corporation

Inventory and highlights from studies and data sources

In this rapidly-changing situation, research is key to staying ahead of the COVID-19 crisis. VTC has organized research resources into three categories – traveler sentiment, industry statistics, economic impact. These categories consisting of both primary and secondary research are living documents that will be updated regularly.

VTC Industry Survey Report by SIR – June 2020

Traveler sentiment (based on consumer surveys)
Travel & tourism industry statistics (e.g. flight and hotel bookings)
Economic impact (estimates of impact on the travel & tourism industry)

1 – TRAVELER SENTIMENT

VTC Industry Research

Based on n=289 from March 26-April 24
Nearly all respondents say COVID-19 has been disruptive to their organization (90%) and the tourism industry in their area (96%).
Nearly all have experience decreases in revenue, while over half have reduced their workforce 4-in-10 have had to close completely.
The industry desires support through funding for recovery advertising, economic impact research, and social media ideas
Link to survey and reports

Longwoods International Bi-weekly Travel Sentiment Study

Online survey of U.S. National Sample of 1,000 adults 18+

Highlights from Wave 21, fielded September 29, 2020:
- The percentage of travelers canceling upcoming trips rose from just over one-third (34%) two weeks ago to 44%. Those changing their upcoming trips rather than canceling them dropped by a similar percentage, from 50% earlier this month to 41% in the latest survey.
- 69% of U.S. travelers indicate they will change their travel plans in the next six months due to COVID-19 similar to levels last seen in June. But pent-up demand for travel remains strong with 65% of travelers indicating they are planning a trip in the next six months.
- As of late September, U.S. travelers’ sense of safety in their own community remains an impediment to the recovery. Less than half of all Americans (43%) support opening their community to visitors or feel safe dining or shopping locally (48%). Half (50%) feel safe traveling outside their community.
- The sustained levels of concern over COVID-19 persists with 50% of U.S. travelers indicating it as “greatly impacting” their travel plans- down from the peak of over two thirds in April.
- More than 4 out of 10 U.S. travelers are seeking clear cleaning and hygiene programs, mandatory mask wearing in public spaces and for hotel staff to use PPE where appropriate plus being regularly tested for COVID-19.
Full report can be found here.

Destination Analysts weekly COVID-19 tracker

Weekly survey of 1,200+ adult American leisure and business travelers, tracking traveler sentiment
Highlights from Wave 30, fielded October 2 – 4, 2020:
- The September jobs report and the President’s announcement of his COVID-19 diagnosis did not appear to heighten American travelers’ concerns, with the percent of American travelers with high degrees of concern about personally contracting the coronavirus decreasing to 68.0% and personal financial concerns dropping to a 30-week low.
- Despite growing pessimism about the pandemic’s course over the next month, Americans’ perceptions of travel’s safety, their confidence in traveling safely and their readiness to travel continued to improve, and over 40% anticipate their next trip will take place before the end of the year.
- As in pre-pandemic times, Florida, Las Vegas, Hawaii, New York and California dominate the hot list of where Americans want to go, although outdoor-brand destinations like Colorado, Utah and North Carolina continue to displace some iconic cities for top spots.
- Nevertheless, urban destinations appear now poised for a comeback, with well over one-third of American travelers describing the destination they most want to visit in the next year as a city/metropolitan area.
- For those still engaging in travel avoidance, the wide distribution of an effective COVID-19 vaccine is far and away their top ranked condition for being comfortable traveling again. Unfortunately, willingness to take a vaccine that is developed in the next few months has declined somewhat among the general American traveling population.
- Looking for indicators of business travel’s recovery, 26.7% of American travelers who work for companies in which employees travel for business say that this travel has started again, up from 24.2% one month ago. However, among those whose companies are not yet back to business travel, now well more than half expect that it won’t be until after April that it resumes.

MMGY/USTA Travel Intentions Pulse Survey (TIPS): Impact of COVID-19

Ongoing survey of 1,200+ adult American leisure and business travelers, tracking traveler sentiment
Wave 1 (Reported February) Wave 2 (Reported March)
Highlights from the Wave 2, published 3/27:
- The likelihood of taking a leisure trip in the next 6 months has declined by more than 50% in the past month
  - Leisure trip (39% compared to 82% in Feb)
  - Business trip (26% compared to 40% in Feb)
- Business travelers generally feel safer traveling than leisure travelers
- In the next 6 months respondents are most likely to:
  - Visit a bar/restaurant
  - Stay in a hotel/resort
  - Take a domestic flight
  - Take a domestic leisure trip
- In the next 6 months respondents are least likely to:
  - Take an international business trip
  - Take a cruise
  - Travel by bus
  - Take a group tour

MMGY/USTA Travel Intentions Pulse Survey (TIPS): Impact of COVID-19

Multiwave study on the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on North American destination organizations. Wave 4 was fielded from 4/17-23.
Highlights from the Wave 4, published 4/27:
- There is growing optimism among destination organizations. Respondents who expect their local tourism economy to show improvement in the next 30 days when from 2% in Wave 3 to 14% in Wave 4. And, the percentage of respondents who expect their local economy to worsen fell from 72% in Wave 3 to 41% in Wave 4.
- Daily inquiries to destination organizations related to COVID-19 continue to decline with just 15% of destination organizations reporting 20+ daily inquiries, down from 26% in the last wave. The most common inquiries are about lodging availability, and event and restaurant closures in the destination.
- Destination organizations continue to focus their current outreach to prospective travelers via informational emails and social media and through public relations efforts.
- Many organizations are clearly starting to plan for their shift from informational campaigns to promotional campaigns in the upcoming two months. Promotional email campaigns will likely be on the leading edge of this transition with 73% of respondents indicating they expect to employ this channel within the next two months, up from 62% in Wave 3.
- And, while crisis communications remain an important effort for most (76% of respondents report investments in this area currently), this is expected to decline rapidly in the next 60 days, with the percentage of destination organizations expected to decline rapidly in the next 60 days, with the percentage of destination organizations expecting the be utilizing crisis communications messaging two months from now falling to 46%.

USTA Webinar: Back-to-Normal Barometer

Highlights from Wave 3 of study including a quantitative online survey coupled with qualitative in-depth interviews and social media conversation analysis, published May 6, 2020.
- Travel confidence remains low, with only 38% feeling a vacation of over 500 miles is a priority in next 12 months, up only slightly from 35% on April 1^st and still well below the 50% level seen in late September of 2001.
- Consumers’ assessment of current conditions and future expectations are inching upwards, and their assessment of their current health and finances are seen as slightly better than the US overall.
- Traveler archetypes include:
  - “Ready to Go” who skew male, age 35-to-44, located in the Northeast & West, and covering the extremes of the political spectrum (very liberal and very conservative) and tend to be business travelers.
  - “Cautious and Fearful” who skew female, from the Midwest, Democrat and leisure travelers.
- While nearly two-thirds are willing to visit a retail store without hesitation, only one-fourth are likely to visit a casino or live sporting event in the next two months.
- Travelers’ likelihood to return to travel and tourism destinations increases as multiple assurances are provided – for example, a combination of the approval of a COVID-19 vaccine and assurance from the local health department is more effective than either of those assurances on their own.

2 – TRAVEL & TOURISM INDUSTRY STATISTICS

ADARA COVID-19 Resource Center

Real-time travel data is shown on this site by region, including the US, EMEA, APAC & China. Highlights from data posted as of 4/8 include:
- Domestic flights booking data reveal few are booking flights in recent weeks. Even looking 90+ days out, they have dropped to almost zero.
- Similarly, hotel booking, even 90 days out, have cratered.
- These two points suggest consumers are not yet bullish about planning flights or hotels for the summer months.
COVID19 Insights Webinar Series Week 7: Navigating Uncharted Territory, May 14^th:
- While still dramatically below pre-COVID-19 levels, flight and hotel bookings for Leisure travel began to increase in the past couple of weeks.
- Top destinations for flights and hotels aren’t consistent, perhaps due to hotels now being booked for earlier discount-driven flight destinations.
- Also, still dramatically below pre-COVID-19 levels, International Leisure flights booked for 91+ days out is starting to increase.
- Some cities less affected by COVID-19 (e.g. Atlanta, Dallas) are starting to see sharp increases in restaurant reservations.
- There was a sharp spike in ticket purchases for year-end holiday events, including concerts and NFL games.

Smith Travel Research (STR) COVID 19 webinars

Smith Travel Research (STR) provides data benchmarking, analytics and marketplace insights for global hospitality sectors.
They’ve setup a COVID-19: Hotel Industry Impact page on their website, offering webinars assessing the impact on a weekly basis.
The US & Canada Weekly Performance webinar from 3/26/2020 recording can be found here. Highlights include:
- Occupancy rates in China have started a “very slowly reacceleration” as hotels re-open there.
- For some countries, it looks like there’s a roughly 8-weekly lag to China’s occupancy trend.
- However, the occupancy rates in the US didn’t fall as quickly as in other countries, possibly since there has not been a national lock-down.
- Also, the RevPAR decline is significantly worse than anything they’ve ever seen, much worse than post-9-11 and the Great Recession.

3 – ECONOMIC IMPACT

Tourism Economics COVID-19’s Impact on Virginia’s Visitor Economy

In August 2020, Tourism Economics conducted a second wave of forecast study for VTC regarding the impact of COVID-19 on Virginia travel and tourism industry. The analysis was done both at the state and regional level. Below are links to a summary report along with complete data files for the statewide data and the regional data.

If you have any questions, please reach out to us at [email protected].

US Travel Association’s Travel Industry Impact Estimate

Weekly Coronavirus Impact on Travel Expenditures in the U.S. released on September 24, 2020. A summary of findings from the report include:

The shift from the summer travel season has left the travel industry more exposed to the virtual absence of business and group travel.
For the week ending in 09/19, The travel economy measured 45% below last year’s levels for the week ending September 19th, resulting in a $10.0 billion loss when compared to the same week a year ago.
Since the beginning of March, the U.S. travel economy’s losses from the COVID-19 pandemic have exceeded $386 billion.
Travel spending in Virginia was $292 million during the week ending 9/19, a $239 million drop from 2019 levels.
Virginia’s weekly travel spending of $292 million is a 45% decline year over year. Most of Virginia’s competitive set experienced similar year over year declines:
- North Carolina: -38%
- Maryland: -37%
- Pennsylvania: -46%
- Washington D.C.: -74%
Full report can be found here.

Weekly Coronavirus Impact on Travel Expenditures in the U.S. released on July 30, 2020. A summary of findings from the report include:

In the week ending July 25^th, U.S. travel spending slightly rose for the first time in three weeks, up 1% from the previous week to $11.6 billion.
The week’s travel spending was 51% below last year’s level for the same week, resulting in an $11.9 billion loss compared to the same week a year ago.
Since the beginning of March, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in $309 billion in losses for the U.S. travel economy.
Travel spending in Virginia was $303 million during the week ending 7/25, a $261 million drop from 2019 levels. Weekly spending increased from $299 million spent during the prior week (7/18).
Virginia’s weekly travel spending of $303 million is an 46% decline year over year. Most of Virginia’s competitive set experienced similar year over year declines:
- North Carolina: -42%
- Maryland: -44%
- Pennsylvania: -48%
- Washington D.C.: -77%
Full report can be found here.

MMGY Travel Intelligence North American COVID-19 Bi-weekly Barometer

Online survey of Destinations International members (600 member organizations, representing 6,000 members globally) to monitor the impact of the coronavirus on destination organizations.
Wave 1 (3/9, n=170) and Wave 2 (3/23, n=189)
Highlights from the 2^nd wave of the study, published on 3/23, include:
- Expected impact on local tourism jumped from only 31% on 3/9 believing the crisis would have an extreme impact to 96% on 3/23.
- The portion of events cancelled or postponed went from under 40% on 3/9 to nearly 100% on 3/23.
- Most efforts to reassure the traveling public focus on sharing information with industry partners, posting coronavirus information on destination websites and social media, and sending out dedicated email updates.
- Over 80% have reduced or postponed sales and marketing spending and shifted strategies.

Brookings Institute: industries most at recession risk due to COVID-19

The Institute published an article on 3/17 suggest that the Leisure and Hospitality industry, which accounted for over 11% of all jobs in 2019, is among the industries at highest risk from COVID-19.
The top 11 markets in Virginia are called out based on the portion of local jobs associated with leisure and hospitality, ranked as follows:
1. Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC (125,466 jobs, 16.5% share of the metro economy)
2. Harrisonburg (10,043, 15.8%)
3. Kingsport-Bristol-Bristol, TN-VA (17,805, 15.4%)
4. Charlottesville (17,215, 15.1%)
5. Richmond (95,738, 15%)
6. Roanoke (22,543, 14.9%)
7. Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford (9,351, 14.5%)
8. Lynchburg (14,228, 14.2%)
9. Staunton-Waynesboro (6,915, 14.2%)
10. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV (420,215, 13.3%)
11. Winchester, VA-WV (8,116, 13.2%)

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

In addition, we encourage our industry partners to visit the following pages of Virginia Tourism Corporation on vatc.org: