Thanksgiving Travel Finally Sees a Rebound, Only 3% Behind 2019 Levels

Welcome back to another episode of Say Yes to travel, a very special Thanksgiving edition. Now I don't want to take too long today just because it is a really special holiday, and hopefully you are all taking the time to spend the day with friends, families, loved ones and everyone. But I also wanted to talk a little bit about what's happening in the state of travel now. Thanksgiving is traditionally a big time for the travel industry, really to kind of understand where the travel landscape is going for the holidays. It kicks off the holiday season, so to speak. And traditionally, Thanksgiving is a very, very big travel time, especially when it comes to road trips. And as we saw earlier in this year, 2021 really was the year of road trips, and Thanksgiving is proving to be no different. So pretty interesting stats actually just came out. AAA is projecting that more than 53.4 million people will travel this Thanksgiving. What's really interesting about this is that this is just 3% shy of pre-pandemic levels. So obviously, this is very much showing that travel is definitely back, certainly within the United States and domestically now. By the way, if you are thinking about it's going to be really traffic, yes, you're right, you've probably already seen it. But if you're going to be going departing throughout the rest of the weekend, definitely what they found. The best times to leave would be departing before 11 AM on Friday and Saturday, and then before noon on Sunday as well, too. So it's definitely going to be a busy time now. They actually even found that traffic is about 40% higher this year nationwide. Really sobering numbers. But also, you know, for those of us in the travel and hospitality space, this is a great reminder that travel is back. We are seeing, depending on location, a lot of hotels booking back up and getting busier. In fact, even just last week, on Friday, November 19th, the TSA actually noticed the busiest day that they have had since the start of the pandemic. Over 2.2 million passengers were screened again. This is all really good signs for us in the hospitality and travel space. Now I will absolutely address that. There still is a hiring sort of struggle right now, finding enough employees, the right employees to work within the hospitality space. And we're seeing this across the board from hotels, restaurants, airlines as well. So right now, if you happen to be a hospitality owner going into the holiday season, be very mindful and very appreciative of those that are on your staff right now is a very challenging time. Traditionally, it's a challenging time for those that are working in hospitality, but even more so this year, just given the circumstances with those long hours, not as many people working. So people are feeling overworked and overloaded. So whatever you can do to show that appreciation and be mindful for the employees that you do have will go a long, long way. Now, just to kind of wrap this up because again, I wanted to keep today a pretty short segment because it's the holidays. And as much as I appreciate you listening to me, you have families to tend to, but hopefully you use this time to take stock. As far as what's happened over this past year, certainly a very different year than 2020 but 2021 has had its own set of challenges and hopefully you find this time at the time that you've been able to maybe restructure or reorganize your business, maybe even have a couple of big wins as travel has come back. But then most importantly, what changes are you making in your business as you move forward? How can you have a more thoughtful business? And by thoughtful, I mean, a business that really caters more towards your employees and really, really make sure that they feel valued, respected, appreciated for all the time and effort that they do for our businesses. And then also appreciation for our guests and our clients that continue to come back as well to how can we go ahead and show our appreciation there as well. So with that being said, thank you all for staying tuned to all of these amazing episodes that we have had throughout the year. We still have a couple more that we'll be sharing throughout the rest of 2021 some phenomenal, phenomenal guests and I hope that you continue to enjoy and listen. So with that being said, I want to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving. Thank you so much for tuning in regularly. And as always, as I like to say, continue to say Yes to travel.