Jacqui Slay, a 38-year-old housewife from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, planned her circle of relatives at Disney World in Florida a year later. With a month to go before his planned tour in early September, he said he didn’t know if it would happen, and mentioned recent cases of COVID-19 that broke records in Florida.
“We’re like in the air about it, ” he said.
Slay is one of many Americans facing a travel dilemma, the COVID-19 pandemic: do you value the threat of traveling and escaping the monotony of quarantined life, or is it greater to wait until the country has the coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, more under control?
A USA TODAY research on knowledge of Trivago, a hotel search and booking platform, shows that Americans have selected a bit of both. Although others are not in a position to re-enter, they are still looking for national vacation destinations that have long been major attractions, adding places where the number of COVID-19 instances is increasing.
Trivago measures the search volume of hotels, which reflects booking requests and queries based on clicks on user links. Last month’s volume was 73% compared to the same time in 2019.
He’s been coming and going for months. After falling 92% below 2019 in April, Trivago hotel searches began to decline in May and June, when states reopened. Florida is among the states that have made the most progress in returning to general reserve titles, from 95% in 2019 titles in early April to just 18% overall in mid-June.
In July, when the number of new cases of coronavirus increased dramatically in dozens of states, prospective travelers withdrew. The number of hotel searches fell below 2019’s number of searches in June.
Yet Florida remained the country’s most-searched domestic travel destination, followed by California and Nevada. All three were major COVID-19 hot spots.
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Florida, California and Nevada are “very classic summer spots for national travelers,” said Robertico Croes, a professor at the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida. He added that Florida and California theme parks are “very attractive, in summer” for tourists, and Las Vegas “is known for its entertainment and casino games.”
“Overall, especially when there’s a crisis like this pandemic, other people tend to be very conservative about their behavior,” Croes said. “It means they move to places where they look familiar.”
Last May, Croes and his team surveyed about 2,000 Americans nationwide and discovered that nearly two-thirds said they would not in the next 12 months.
For those hoping to travel, 40% said they would most likely stay close to home and destinations with a small number of coronavirus cases, but 27% of them were “sealbreakers,” which were less involved with the coronavirus scenario when opting for destinations and willing to travel further.
Craig Haseman, a doctor in the 49-year-old family circle in Evansville, Indiana, is one of those who “breaks his neck.” In mid-July, he and 11 friends and a circle of relatives drove about nine hours from Indiana to a vacation home at WaterColor, a beach hotel on the Florida Gulf Coast, and spent a week there.
When Haseman booked the rent about a month before the Array after several states, adding Florida, had begun to reopen, he had no idea that the virus instances would accumulate there in the same weeks for which it was scheduled.
“When the numbers fell everywhere, we moved on and planned it,” Haseman said. “As they approached us, we learned that the numbers were increasing.”
The group of Indiana travelers decided to stick with their plan, but “we just stayed with the people that we went with” to social distance, said Haseman.
Susan Glasser, 50, and her Nashville husband visited Florida in a way that potentially exposed them to more people, through the air.
They had originally planned to travel to Costa Rica in January for their 25th wedding anniversary in July, but in June they decided to cancel.
“We’re too afraid of coronavirus, but we’re pragmatic and cautious enough,” Glasser said.
The couple took a flight to Jacksonville, Florida, and traveled to Amelia Island.
“We feel as safe as we imagined when we travel during COVID,” he said, congratulating The Ritz and Southwest Airlines on their application of the protection protocol. So much so that Glasser hopes to let the holidays of a circle of relatives with their five children in September or October if they can get their schedule, and COVID-19, to cooperate.
But for others, cancellation has the safest option.
Tracey Marshall-Underwood, a 44-year-old optometrist from Dover, Delaware, opted to “give up our summer” in the family circle security call. They spend a week in Virginia Beach, Virginia, attending the state fair and visiting amusement parks.
He bought a trampoline to keep his 13- and 10-year-olds out of the house.
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Amy Fesmire of Firestone, Colorado, has opted to cancel her family’s south Carolina summer vacation plans. They’ve been going to the same beach in Isle of Palms for about 22 years with another family. Fesmire said they were not comfortable flying at this time and quoted South Carolina coronavirus figures for their concerns. New cases in the state are increasing during the summer, but have since begun to decline; they chose to replace Father’s Day plans.
“When I called to communicate with someone there, she said it was crazy and no one wore a mask,” said the 54-year-old sophomore teacher. “My daughter-in-law is pregnant, so we didn’t have to take any chances.”
Fesmire and her husband, 3 children and daughter-in-law to make a stop at Yellowstone National Park instead of South Carolina because everyone may drive there; arrived on July 25 and left on August 1. They rented a lake house in Island Park, Idaho, did day trips to the park for sightseeing and wore a mask wherever they went, as well as hiking.
Travelers may also face quarantine restrictions across the country or by their employers when deciding or
Diana Snyder, a 34-year-old instructor from Jonas, Pennsylvania, won her a list of 18 states, adding Florida, California and Nevada, which, if visited, would force her to be quarantined for two weeks.
“The coronavirus doesn’t stop me from going anywhere. Array… But it wouldn’t happen to any of those states because it probably couldn’t go for two weeks… when school returns in late August,” said Snyder, who eventually drove with his circle of relatives to New York and camped near Lake Ontario for a week.
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Matthew Loraditch, a 35-year-old Maryland network engineer, was scheduled to be in South Africa with his parents for 11 days in mid-July. Three months before his circle of Array relatives canceled his flight abroad. South Africa began its blockade at the end of March, when all its borders were closed and foreign flights were banned.
Months later, he canceled two more seconds: a Las Vegas conference scheduled for June and an excursion to Disney World originally scheduled for March and postponed in September.
“I’m doing anything now, ” said Loraditch.
Nevada saw a more powerful uptick in interest in May and June (Las Vegas reopened casinos in early June), but interest declined as the state epidemic worsened. Trivago’s knowledge shows that the hotel search point has recovered to only 26% below 2019 degrees in mid-June after falling to 94% below 2019 in early April. Then, searches for hotels in Nevada fell to 58% of grades in 2019 at the end of July.
Among the countless trips cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a 37-year-old Northern Virginia planner, who specializes in booking and making plans for Disney tours, has noticed 14.
Justin Rose said 10 families canceled their trips for the closure of Disney World between March and July, and when Disney World reopened its parks in Florida from July 11, 4 other families asked for cancellations for ” considerations for COVID itself or for fears that Disney would delight. in wouldn’t be. what it was before the closing. »
“Many other people plan their trips one or two years in advance. They do all the pre-planning and overlook all the excitement needed to get there, and then cancel it at the last minute, out of their control, it’s unfortunate,” he added. said Rose, who has visited Disney parks about 30 times. Far.
For the rest of the calendar year, you have another 10 reserved for Disney World in Florida.
Before closing, visitors may have faced long queues. Now, Rose said, “because the park is going to be so empty, you can see and do what you need to do.”
After less than expected assistance amid the coronavirus pandemic, Disney is reducing opening hours for Magic Kingdom and several Florida theme parks.
José Miguel Polanco, a 27-year-old sales manager, lives in Peru but lately is in Brazil with his parents. Every year, he returns to the United States with his family. This year, it couldn’t happen.
I intended to fly from Lima to Dallas, Texas, last week for a professional occasion and then a vacation.
“Our corporate first canceled the event, then Peru canceled all foreign flights,” he said. He was able to travel to Brazil on a humanitarian flight to be with his parents.
His circle of relatives had planned other trips this year, adding one to the French Riviera in May and To Ecuador in August.
“There was no doubt about whether to cancel the s, it just doesn’t feel good to pass out and enjoy it when there are so many other people in the Americas who suffer from physical or economic fitness problems,” he said, noting that he had relatives. COVID-19 in Peru.
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