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Today's Takeaways From SCT's director of marketing systems & insights, Ariane Hiltebrand The recent traveler sentiment update by Destination Analysts (Aug 24th, 2021) reveals that the Delta variant situation is continuing to impact travel in a negative way with increasing cancelations. However, on a positive note, some of the other traveler sentiment metrics that the survey has been tracking have either leveled off or turned around to be slightly more positive, such as travel optimism and marketability.

Destination Analysts Key Findings to Know From Destination Analysts' Travel Sentiment Report

Despite 72.2% of American travelers reporting they have received a COVID vaccine, 63.2% have a high degree of concern about personally contracting the coronavirus right now. About 60% of American travelers say what’s happening with the Delta variant is making them less interested in travel right now (up from 54.3% the week of August 9th). Meanwhile, an increasing number of travelers are saying they have postponed an upcoming trip specifically due to the Delta variant (32.7% up from 27.0% two weeks ago); those who say they have cancelled a trip due to Delta variant concerns remains at 27.5%. 73.6% of American travelers support the reinstatement of indoor masking policies, growing nearly 9 percentage points since August 9th. Using San Francisco’s current COVID-19 vaccine mandate for entry to bars, restaurants and gyms as an example, 61.2% of American travelers say they support this (20.6% oppose) and 47.4% even agree it makes the city a more attractive place to visit (25.1% disagree). About 60% of American travelers say they would support such indoor COVID-19 vaccine mandates in their own community, (17.8% would be neutral and 22.5% would be opposed). The proportion of American travelers who feel the pandemic situation will improve in the next month has gained 6 percentage points in the last two weeks to 26.3%. Unfortunately, sentiment towards convention-related and international travel did not make similar rebounds. American travelers with concerns about their personal finances continued to rise, hitting 55.0% from 47.7% 2 weeks ago, and nearly 45% report they are feeling a lot of financial stress lately. This financial related anxiety likely contributes to almost 60% agreeing that travel prices are too high right now —most particularly hotel rates and gasoline. Over 43% now say high travel prices have deterred them from traveling in the past month, up from 34.6% in just two weeks. Despite these affordability perceptions, 54.7% say leisure travel will remain a high priority in their budgets and 41.4% agree that the present is a good time to spend on travel. 80% of American travelers still have trip plans. In fact, 24.4% report having travel planned in September, and 23.4% report having travel planned in October. Both November and December are currently above 20%, as well.

Occupancy Data for Hotels & Short Term Lodgings

*Please note the charts below contain different date ranges.

Air Travel Year over Year At Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport

Recent Travel by Month At Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport

STR Tracking for Sonoma County

Things to Note: STR is comparing “Weekly Year Over Year.” 55 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.

To get your full statistics fix, with data from STR, AirDNA, and the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport, make sure to check out the Monthly Tourism Destination Data Dashboard at sonomacounty.com/statistics.