travel trends today magazine

What is the future of travel?

All aboard! After the pandemic upended life and leisure as we know it, travel is roaring back. The industry is set to make a full recovery by the end of 2024, after losing 75 percent of its value in 2020. Much of this has been so-called “revenge travel,” or people embarking on international or bucket list trips that were delayed by the pandemic. But domestic travel is recovering quickly too and is set to represent 70 percent of travel spending by 2030.

Get to know and directly engage with senior McKinsey experts on travel and tourism

Margaux Constantin is a partner in McKinsey’s Dubai office, Matteo Pacca is a senior partner in the Paris office, and Vik Krishnan is a senior partner in the Bay Area office.

We’ve done a deep dive into the latest travel trends and how industry players can adjust accordingly in The state of travel and hospitality 2024 report. Check out the highlights below, as well as McKinsey’s insights on AI in travel, mass tourism, and much more.

Learn more about McKinsey’s Travel, Logistics, and Infrastructure Practice .

Who are today’s travelers, and what do they want?

In February and March 2024, McKinsey surveyed  more than 5,000 people in China, Germany, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the United Kingdom, and the United States who had taken at least one leisure trip in the past two years. Here are six highlights from the results of that survey:

• Travel is a top priority, especially for younger generations. Sixty-six percent of travelers we surveyed said they are more interested in travel now than before the COVID-19 pandemic. And millennials and Gen Zers  are traveling more and spending a higher share of their income on travel than their older counterparts.
• Younger travelers are keen to travel abroad. Gen Zers and millennials who responded to our survey are planning nearly an equal number of international and domestic trips in 2024. Older generations are planning to take twice as many domestic trips.
• Baby boomers are willing to spend if they see value. Baby boomers still account for 20 percent of overall travel spending. They are willing to spend on comforts such as nonstop flights. On the other hand, they are more willing to forego experiences to save money while traveling, unlike Gen Zers who will cut all other expense categories before they trim experiences.
• Travel is a collective story, with destinations as the backdrop. Travelers both want to hear other travelers’ stories and share their own. Ninety-two percent of younger travelers were inspired by social media in some shape or form for their last trip.
• What travelers want depends on where they’re from. Sixty-nine percent of Chinese respondents said they plan to visit a famous sight on their next trip, versus the 20 percent of European and North American travelers who said the same. Respondents living in the UAE also favor iconic destinations, as well as shopping and outdoor activities.

Learn more about McKinsey’s  Travel, Logistics, and Infrastructure Practice .

What are the top three travel industry trends today?

Travel is back, but traveler flows are shifting. McKinsey has isolated three major themes for industry stakeholders to consider as they look ahead.

• The bulk of travel spending is close to home. Seventy-five percent of travel spend is domestic. The United States is currently the world’s largest domestic travel market, but China is set to overtake it in the coming years. Stakeholders should make sure they capture the full potential of domestic travelers before turning their attention abroad.
• New markets such as India, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe are growing sources of outbound tourism. Indians’ travel spending is expected to grow 9 percent per year between now and 2030; annual growth projections for Southeast Asians and Eastern Europeans are both around 7 percent.
• Unexpected destinations are finding new ways to lure travelers and establish themselves alongside enduring favorites. Rwanda, for example, has capitalized on sustainable tourism by limiting gorilla trekking permits and directing revenue toward conservation.

Introducing McKinsey Explainers : Direct answers to complex questions

For a more in-depth look at these trends, check out McKinsey’s State of travel and hospitality 2024   report .

How will AI change how people travel?

In the 1950s, the introduction of the jet engine dramatically reduced travel times, changing the way people traveled forever. Now AI is upending the industry  in a similarly fundamental way. Industry players down to individual travelers are using advances in generative AI (gen AI) , machine learning , and deep learning  to reimagine what it means to plan, book, and experience travel. “It’s quite clear,” says McKinsey partner Vik Krishnan , “that gen AI significantly eases  the process of travel discovery.”

For travel companies, the task now is to rethink how they interact with customers, develop products and services, and manage operations in the age of AI. According to estimates by McKinsey Digital, companies that holistically address digital and analytics opportunities have the potential to see an earnings improvement of up to 25 percent .

McKinsey and Skift Research interviewed executives from 17 companies across five types of travel business. Here are three key findings on how travel companies can reckon with emerging technologies, drawn from the resulting report The promise of travel in the age of AI :

• Segmentation. Companies can use AI to create hyperspecific customer segments to guide how they interact with and serve customers. Segmentation can be based on a single macro characteristic (such as business versus leisure), or it can be so specific as to relate to just one customer.
• Surprise and delight. In the travel context, gen AI could take the form of digital assistants that interact with customers throughout their journeys, providing personalized trip itineraries and tailored recommendations and helping to resolve unexpected disruptions.
• Equipping workers better. AI tools can free up frontline workers’ time, allowing them to focus more on personal customer interactions. These tools can also shorten the training time for new hires and quickly upskill  the existing workforce.

AI is important, yes. But, according to Ella Alkalay Schreiber, general manager (GM) of fintech at Hopper, “The actual challenge is to understand the data, ask the right questions, read prediction versus actual, and do this in a timely manner. The actual challenge is the human thinking, the common sense .”

How is mass tourism changing travel?

More people are traveling than ever before. The most visited destinations are experiencing more concentrated flows of tourists ; 80 percent of travelers visit just 10 percent of the world’s tourist destinations. Mass tourism can encumber infrastructure, frustrate locals, and even harm the attractions that visitors came to see in the first place.

Tourism stakeholders can collectively look for better ways to handle visitor flows before they become overwhelming. Destinations should remain alert to early warning signs about high tourism concentration and work to maximize the benefits of tourism, while minimizing its negative impacts.

Destinations should remain alert to early warning signs about high tourism concentration and work to maximize the benefits of tourism, while minimizing its negative impacts.

For one thing, destinations should understand their carrying capacity of tourists—that means the specific number of visitors a destination can accommodate before harm is caused to its physical, economic, or sociocultural environment. Shutting down tourism once the carrying capacity is reached isn’t always possible—or advisable. Rather, destinations should focus on increasing carrying capacity to enable more growth.

Next, destinations should assess their readiness to handle mass tourism and choose funding sources and mechanisms that can address its impacts. Implementing permitting systems for individual attractions can help manage capacity and mitigate harm. Proceeds from tourism can be reinvested into local communities to ensure that residents are not solely responsible for repairing the wear and tear caused by visitors.

After risks and funding sources have been identified, destinations can prepare for growing tourist volumes in the following ways:

• Build and equip a tourism-ready workforce to deliver positive tourism experiences.
• Use data (gathered from governments, businesses, social media platforms, and other sources) to manage visitor flows.
• Be deliberate about which tourist segments to attract (business travelers, sports fans, party groups, et cetera), and tailor offerings and communications accordingly.
• Distribute visitor footfall across different areas, nudging tourists to visit less-trafficked locations, and during different times, promoting off-season travel.
• Be prepared for sudden, unexpected fluctuations triggered by viral social media and cultural trends.
• Preserve cultural and natural heritage. Engage locals, especially indigenous people, to find the balance between preservation and tourism.

How can the travel sector accelerate the net-zero transition?

Global warming is getting worse, and the travel sector contributes up to 11 percent of total carbon emissions. Many consumers are aware that travel is part of the problem, but they’re reticent to give up their trips: travel activity is expected to soar by 85 percent  from 2016 to 2030. Instead, they’re increasing pressure on companies in the travel sector to achieve net zero . It’s a tall order: the range of decarbonization technologies in the market is limited, and what’s available is expensive.

But decarbonization doesn’t have to be a loss-leading proposition. Here are four steps  travel companies can take toward decarbonization that can potentially create value:

• Identify and sequence decarbonization initiatives. Awareness of decarbonization levers is one thing; implementation is quite another. One useful tool to help develop an implementation plan is the marginal abatement cost curve pathway framework, which provides a cost-benefit analysis of individual decarbonization levers and phasing plans.
• Partner to accelerate decarbonization of business travel. Many organizations will reduce their business travel, which accounts for 30 percent of all travel spend. This represents an opportunity for travel companies to partner with corporate clients on decarbonization. Travel companies can support their partners in achieving their decarbonization goals by nudging corporate users to make more sustainable choices, while making reservations and providing data to help partners track their emissions.
• Close the ‘say–do’ gap among leisure travelers. One McKinsey survey indicates that 40 percent of travelers globally say they are willing to pay at least 2 percent more for carbon-neutral flights. But Skift’s latest consumer survey reveals that only 14 percent  of travelers said they actually paid more for sustainable travel options. Travel companies can help close this gap by making sustainable options more visible during booking and using behavioral science to encourage travelers to make sustainable purchases.
• Build new sustainable travel options for the future. The travel sector can proactively pioneer sustainable new products and services. Green business building will require companies to create special initiatives, led by teams empowered to experiment without the pressure of being immediately profitable.

What’s the future of air travel?

Air travel is becoming more seasonal, as leisure travel’s increasing share of the market creates more pronounced summer peaks. Airlines have responded by shifting their schedules to operate more routes at greater frequency during peak periods. But airlines have run into turbulence when adjusting to the new reality. Meeting summer demand means buying more aircraft and hiring more crew; come winter, these resources go unutilized, which lowers productivity . But when airlines don’t run more flights in the summer, they leave a lot of money on the table.

How can airlines respond to seasonality? Here are three approaches :

• Mitigate winter weakness by employing conventional pricing and revenue management techniques, as well as creative pricing approaches (including, for example, monitoring and quickly seizing on sudden travel demand spikes, such as those created by a period of unexpectedly sunny weather).
• Adapt to seasonality by moving crew training sessions to off-peak periods, encouraging employee holiday taking during trough months, and offering workers seasonal contracts. Airlines can also explore outsourcing of crew, aircraft, maintenance, and even insurance.
• Leverage summer strengths, ensuring that commercial contracts reflect summer’s higher margins.

How is the luxury travel space evolving?

Quickly. Luxury travelers are not who you might expect: many are under the age of 60 and not necessarily from Europe or the United States. Perhaps even more surprisingly, they are not all millionaires: 35 percent of luxury-travel spending is by travelers with net worths between $100,000 and $1 million. Members of this group are known as aspirational luxury travelers, and they have their own set of preferences. They might be willing to spend big on one aspect of their trip—a special meal or a single flight upgrade—but not on every travel component. They prefer visibly branded luxury and pay close attention to loyalty program points and benefits .

The luxury-hospitality space is projected to grow faster than any other segment, at 6 percent per year  through 2025. And competition for luxury hotels is intensifying too: customers now have the option of renting luxurious villas with staff, or booking nonluxury hotels with luxury accoutrements such as rainfall showerheads and mattress toppers.

Another critical evolution is that the modern consumer, in the luxury space and elsewhere, values experiences over tangible things (exhibit).

Luxury properties may see more return from investing in a culture of excellence—powered by staff who anticipate customer needs, exceed expectations, create cherished memories, and make it all feel seamless—than in marble floors and gold-plated bath fixtures. Here are a few ways luxury properties can foster a culture of excellence :

• Leaders should assume the role of chief culture officer. GMs of luxury properties should lead by example to help nurture a healthy and happy staff culture and listen and respond to staff concerns.
• Hire for personalities, not resumes. “You can teach someone how to set a table,” said one GM we interviewed, “but you can’t teach a positive disposition.”
• Celebrate and reward employees. Best-in-class service is about treating customers with generosity and care. Leaders in the service sector can model this behavior by treating employees similarly.
• Create a truly distinctive customer experience . McKinsey research has shown that the top factor influencing customer loyalty in the lodging sector is “an experience worth paying more for”—not the product. Train staff to focus on tiny details as well as major needs to deliver true personalization.

What’s the latest in travel loyalty programs?

Loyalty programs are big business . They’ve evolved past being simply ways to boost sales or strengthen customer relationships; now, for many travel companies, they are profit centers in their own right. One major development was that travel companies realized they could sell loyalty points in bulk to corporate partners, who in turn offered the points to their customers as rewards. In 2019, United’s MileagePlus loyalty program sold $3.8 billion worth of miles to third parties, which accounted for 12 percent of the airline’s total revenue for that year. In 2022, American Airlines’ loyalty program brought in $3.1 billion in revenue, and Marriott’s brought in $2.7 billion.

But as this transition has happened, travel players have shifted focus away from the original purpose of these programs. Travel companies are seeing these loyalty programs primarily as revenue generators, rather than ways to improve customer experiences . As a result, loyalty program members have become increasingly disloyal. Recent loyalty surveys conducted by McKinsey revealed a steep decline in the likelihood that a customer would recommend airline, hotel, and cruise line loyalty programs to a friend. The same surveys also found that airline loyalty programs are driving fewer customer behavior changes than they used to.

So how can travel brands win customers’ loyalty back? Here are three steps to consider:

• Put experience at the core of loyalty programs. According to our 2023 McKinsey Travel Loyalty Survey , American respondents said they feel more loyal to Amazon than to the top six travel players combined, despite the absence of any traditional loyalty program. One of the reasons for Amazon’s success may be the frictionless experience it provides customers. Companies should strive to design loyalty programs around experiential benefits that make travelers feel special and seamlessly integrate customer experiences between desktop, mobile, and physical locations.
• Use data to offer personalization  to members. Travel brands have had access to customer data for a long time. But many have yet to deploy it for maximum value. Companies can use personalization to tailor both experiences and offers for loyalty members; our research has shown that 78 percent  of consumers are more likely to make a repeat purchase when offered a personalized experience.
• Rethink partnerships. Traditionally, travel companies have partnered with banks to offer cobranded credit cards. But many credit card brands now offer their own, self-branded travel rewards ecosystems. These types of partnerships may have diminishing returns in the future. When rethinking partnerships, travel brands should seek to build richer connections with customers, while boosting engagement. Uber’s partnership with Marriott, for example, gives users the option to link the brands’ loyalty programs, tapping into two large customer bases and providing more convenient travel experiences.

In a changing travel ecosystem, travel brands will need to ask themselves some hard questions if they want to earn back their customers’ loyalty.

Learn more about McKinsey’s Travel, Logistics, and Infrastructure Practice . And check out travel-related job opportunities if you’re interested in working at McKinsey.

Articles referenced include:

• “ Updating perceptions about today’s luxury traveler ,” May 29, 2024, Caroline Tufft , Margaux Constantin , Matteo Pacca , and Ryan Mann
• “ The way we travel now ,” May 29, 2024, Caroline Tufft , Margaux Constantin , Matteo Pacca , and Ryan Mann
• “ Destination readiness: Preparing for the tourist flows of tomorrow ,” May 29, 2024, Caroline Tufft , Margaux Constantin , Matteo Pacca , and Ryan Mann
• “ How the world’s best hotels deliver exceptional customer experience ,” March 18, 2024, Ryan Mann , Ellen Scully, Matthew Straus, and Jillian Tellez Holub
• “ How airlines can handle busier summers—and comparatively quiet winters ,” January 8, 2024, Jaap Bouwer, Ludwig Hausmann , Nina Lind , Christophe Verstreken, and Stavros Xanthopoulos
• “ Travel invented loyalty as we know it. Now it’s time for reinvention. ,” November 15, 2023, Lidiya Chapple, Clay Cowan, Ellen Scully, and Jillian Tellez Holub
• “ What AI means for travel—now and in the future ,” November 2, 2023, Alex Cosmas  and Vik Krishnan
• “ The promise of travel in the age of AI ,” September 27, 2023, Susann Almasi, Alex Cosmas , Sam Cowan, and Ben Ellencweig
• “ The future of tourism: Bridging the labor gap enhancing customer experience ,” August 1, 2023, Urs Binggeli, Zi Chen, Steffen Köpke, and Jackey Yu
• “ Hotels in the 2030s: Perspectives from Accor’s C-suite ,” July 27, 2023, Aurélia Bettati
• “ Tourism in the metaverse: Can travel go virtual? ,” May 4, 2023, Margaux Constantin , Giuseppe Genovese, Kashiff Munawar, and Rebecca Stone
• “ Three innovations to solve hotel staffing shortages ,” April 3, 2023, Ryan Mann , Esteban Ramirez, and Matthew Straus
• “ Accelerating the transition to net-zero travel ,” September 20, 2022, Danielle Bozarth , Olivier Cheret, Vik Krishnan , Mackenzie Murphy, and Jules Seeley
• “ The six secrets of profitable airlines ,” June 28, 2022, Jaap Bouwer, Alex Dichter , Vik Krishnan , and Steve Saxon
• “ How to ‘ACE’ hospitality recruitment ,” June 23, 2022, Margaux Constantin , Steffen Köpke, and Joost Krämer
• “ Opportunities for industry leaders as new travelers take to the skies ,” April 5, 2022, Mishal Ahmad, Frederik Franz, Tomas Nauclér, and Daniel Riefer
• “ Rebooting customer experience to bring back the magic of travel ,” September 21, 2021, Vik Krishnan , Kevin Neher, Maurice Obeid , Ellen Scully, and Jules Seeley

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Fall Travel Trends: Have You Heard of ‘Trip Stacking’? (You Will.)

Uncertainty remains the new normal in travel this autumn driven by the rise in cases and ever-changing travel restrictions, but here are eight things you can expect.

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By Concepción de León

After a summer in which travel accelerated rapidly, nearly reaching prepandemic numbers, fall is looking like the season of uncertainty. Increasing concern about the Delta variant, as well as a seasonal travel dip, have slowed bookings. Fear of the variant and the potential of changing regulations have prompted travelers to plan more cautiously.

International trips are being pushed to 2022, with some people monitoring conditions week by week before booking. The European Union’s announcement on Monday that it was removing the United States from its “safe list” of countries raises the question of whether European nations will reinstate restrictions.

Seth Borko, a senior research analyst at Skift Research, an arm of the Skift travel trade publication, said that while he thinks some countries — especially those dependent on international tourism — will ignore the guidance, some travelers may still be dissuaded. “The travel lists themselves reduce people’s inclination to go to those destinations,” he said.

Joshua Bush, the chief executive officer of Avenue Two Travel , a luxury travel agency based in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, said that as the virus continues to develop, “the one thing to know for certain is that everything is going to be uncertain, that things can change at any time.”

Here is what you can expect if you plan to travel this fall.

Booking a flexible ticket will be easier.

Because of the uncertainty raised by the Delta variant, said Paula Twidale, the senior vice president of travel at AAA , travelers are adopting a “wait and see approach,” delaying bookings or opting for flexible tickets.

Hopper , a travel booking app, has seen an increase in the use of its services that allow people to cancel or rebook flights free of charge. Purchases of its “cancel for any reason” add-on have increased 54 percent over the last 12 weeks and the number of people opting for its “rebooking guarantee” has grown by 50 percent since early spring.

Some airlines, like Delta and United, have reintroduced flexibility for basic economy passengers , who would not normally be allowed to change their tickets. This was a hallmark of early pandemic travel, said Scott Keyes, the founder of Scott’s Cheap Flights , a service that alerts subscribers to discounted airfares, adding that the reversal demonstrates the airline industry’s understanding of people’s skittishness in light of the Delta variant.

Some luxury travelers are opting for what some people call “trip stacking,” or buying two trips over the same time period in case one of them falls through, said Mr. Bush, who has been offering this service. Many of his clients had been forced to cancel travel plans because of regulation changes during the pandemic. Booking two trips, he said, ensures that “they wouldn’t be left out in the cold without having any trip at all.”

“Ultimately, they’re going to take both of those trips,” he said. “It just matters which is the one that is going to be most likely to come to fruition in October.”

For budget travelers thinking of trying this strategy, said Mr. Keyes, it’s important that they “come in cleareyed about what happens to the ticket they don’t use.”

Fliers are only entitled to a refund if the airline cancels the flight or there is a significant delay. If passengers cancel, airlines will typically offer travel vouchers for future use.

The only exception, said Mr. Keyes, is if you book with miles, in which case you will get back your miles and any taxes and fees if you decide not to travel.

You may have more room on the plane, but your rental car may cost more.

Both domestic and international airfares are expected to drop this fall as demand drops, said Adit Damodaran, an economist and chief travel expert at Hopper. Though flight prices do not seem to have been affected by the new E.U. travel guidelines so far, Mr. Damodaran said that if restrictions are put in place and demand declines, prices could drop further.

“I would say that the general theme going into the fall at the moment is kind of a return to the way that travel was in the spring,” Mr. Damodaran said. “What I mean by that is lower prices compared to the summer, and also a little bit more domestic travel compared to international travel.”

But prices are still high in other sectors, especially for hotels and car rentals. A recent survey by Skift Research found that 73 percent of respondents intended to take a road trip in 2020, and Mr. Borko said that the E.U. action will likely accelerate that trend.

Because so many international destinations remain closed, “what is open, there’s such a high demand,” Ms. Twidale said. “If you’re waiting for a last minute booking or a last minute deal, it’s really not a good value proposition for you to do that,” she said.

Jasmine Jordan, 31, a singer-songwriter and marketer who lives in Seattle, said that she also now spends more on travel expenses that she considered unnecessary in the past, like travelers’ insurance.

During a recent trip to Mexico, she also opted for private transportation as opposed to shuttles to minimize her interaction with people outside her party. She finds herself “paying more for the convenience and, I guess, security of just knowing you’re in tighter spaces with really just your tight knit people,” she said.

Traveling domestically? You’ll have company.

The spread of the Delta variant has made many would-be travelers wary of making international travel plans, both because of personal reservations and also out of concern that changing regulations will force them to cancel.

The European Union taking the United States off its “safe list,” for instance, raises uncertainty about whether European countries will change regulations when it comes to American visitors. But Mr. Borko said that even during the summer while Europe was open, travelers were still inclined toward domestic tourism — a trend he expects to continue.

“I think what you see in the data is when people become more fearful, of the pandemic, of Covid, to the extent they’re traveling, it tends to be more focused domestically than internationally,” Mr. Keyes said.

Mr. Damodaran, of Hopper, said that international bookings have been going down month over month on that platform, while domestic bookings have remained stable.

“Part of that is the ‘seasonality’ that we’re seeing just going into the fall,” when travel normally falls off, he said, “and the other part of that could be some impact from the Delta variant” making travelers more hesitant to book trans-Atlantic travel.

This unpredictability led Ms. Jordan, who had a trip planned to Italy this fall, to postpone it for next year. Though she and her friend, a nurse, were sure they wanted to go, they had not yet booked their flight.

“Normally, it would be way in advance,” she said, but “I think we were just slowly tip toeing, kind of feeling out week to week.” She ultimately decided that she didn’t want to risk getting stuck in another country.

The pandemic has changed her overall attitude toward travel, she said, making her more flexible to changes. “In previous years I would get so frustrated when things didn’t happen exactly how I wanted to,” she said. “After this last year, I almost feel like I’m a new person.”

Mukhaye Nangalama, a 33-year-old who works in business affairs for a record label in Los Angeles, also expressed reservations about booking international travel. “I really don’t want to go anywhere international until we kind of see how 2022 pans out,” Ms. Nangalama said. “Some foreign countries, their medical health infrastructure is not as good as here,” she said, adding that she would “hate to be stuck somewhere very far from home and not have access to certain medical care if I were to get sick.”

And the beach may be crowded.

Many travelers are gravitating toward beach vacations in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and Hawaii, which are close and provide an outdoor escape. Hawaii has been so overwhelmed by tourists amid rising coronavirus case numbers that Gov. David Ige urged travelers to stay away in an Aug. 23 news conference.

This is a trend that continues from last winter and spring, when travelers gravitated more toward these places because of the stringent restrictions in place in the European Union, for instance, said Mr. Damodaran.

Lia Avellino, 33, the director of a mental well-being program at the Well, a wellness center in New York, has traveled quite a bit throughout the pandemic, primarily to places near the city. But this fall, she is taking her family to Costa Rica for a beach surf vacation, their first international trip since the pandemic.

She said they got travel insurance in case they need to change or cancel the flight based on how the Delta variant affects the country, and she plans on keeping her young children masked.

Though she has family in Europe, Ms. Avellino said that she wanted to go somewhere closer to home for the family’s first international trip, “and then see how that feels for our nervous systems.”

You still may not be able to rent a car.

Businesses across the travel industry continue to struggle to rebuild their work force, so services are still being cut back and limited.

Car rental counters in airports have been condensed to include multiple brands, often operated by one or two agents, Ms. Twidale said. Airlines have cut some routes, offering fewer nonstop flights. There has also been a shortage in rental cars, which Ms. Twidale said may not resolve itself until 2022 because of a semiconductor chip shortage affecting car rental companies’ ability to upgrade or add vehicles to their fleets. And airline companies are scrambling to hire more call center employees to reduce call wait times, which are now several hours for most airlines.

“Everyone’s trying to get staff back in place, because the demand just spiked and surged,” Ms. Twidale said. “That’s going to be the challenge for a little while, not only the hiring but bringing the competency up to speed.”

JetBlue said in an email that it is currently working to “hire and train 4,000 new crew members” to meet increased demand and “the added steps Covid travel mandates have created, like verifying test results and other health documents.” And American Airlines said it is hiring “hundreds” of reservation agents to better support customers.

Budget carriers are making a play for you.

One area in which there appears to be growth is among the budget airlines, which have taken advantage of the shift toward leisure travel during the pandemic.

Mr. Keyes said that while the number of available “seat miles,” which refers to available seats, are down across major airlines compared to before the pandemic, budget airlines have actually added seat miles. Spirit has 14 percent more than it did the same time two years ago, while Allegiant has 28 percent more.

“You see the budget airlines really trying to not only bounce back quicker but really make a play to gobble up market share away from these sort of legacy airlines,” he said. “They’re seeing the travel landscape changing toward their sort of playing field.”

Budget airlines offer direct flights to popular vacation destinations and appeal to casual leisure travelers who are paying out of pocket. Legacy airlines, on the other hand, rely more heavily on business travel, which continues to lag, said Mr. Borko of Skift Research.

Still, the budget airlines have not been immune to the challenges the industry is facing. Spirit Airlines, for instance, canceled hundreds of flights in August .

Taking young children? Think road trip.

With vaccinations still unavailable for children under 12, families must calculate the risk of traveling with their young children.

“That’s why there’s a high propensity of road trips and domestic travel happening,” Ms. Twidale said. She encourages families to go places where they can have more control over their environments and limit the number of people with whom they interact, like national parks.

That’s the route that Dr. Amber Schmidtke, 40, and her family, who live in Kansas City, took during the pandemic. Over the summer, for example, she and her family packed up their camper and traveled for three weeks through Colorado and Utah. Camping, she said, is “sort of pandemic-proof.”

In March, after she and her husband got vaccinated, they booked a Labor Day trip to Hawaii with their children, 10 and 12, with another family of mixed vaccination status.

“We fully expected that there would be a pediatric vaccine by now,” Dr. Schmidtke said. But a few weeks ago, as she saw cases rise in Hawaii and reflected on how the virus has disproportionately harmed people of color, including Native Hawaiians, she decided to cancel her trip.

Dr. Schmidtke is particularly attuned to the spread of the Delta variant because of her work as a Covid researcher at the University of St. Mary in Kansas .

“I may be a little more paranoid than some parents,” she said, but “especially with unvaccinated kids, it’s just a risk that we weren’t willing to take.” She added that she didn’t want to “be responsible for any sort of outbreak” in Hawaii.

You really should be thinking about 2022.

Bookings have already started to pick up for next year. Gemma Jamieson, a spokeswoman for Skyscanner, a flight-booking app, said in an email that bookings for 2022 created in the last week were up 30 percent compared to the same time in July. The top bookings were to Cancún, London, Paris, Rome and Tokyo, indicating a continued demand for travel worldwide.

It’s too early to tell how these bookings will be affected by the European Union’s action this week. But, said Dia Adams, a travel expert at Forbes Advisor, “I do think the top line will scare some European travelers off booking their trips.”

Mr. Borko said that he anticipates a continued interest in domestic or regional travel, to places such as Mexico and the Caribbean.

“International travel is recovering very slowly and still very much below where we were,” he said, “and the sentiment about Covid has turned much more sharply negative.”

Despite the continued challenges to the travel industry, Ms. Twidale said that she’s optimistic about next year.

“Twenty-nineteen was a banner year for travel,” she said. “Twenty-twenty-two could be an even bigger banner year than 2019.”

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram , Twitter and Facebook . And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places list for 2021 .

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the number of flights canceled by Spirit Airlines this summer. While the airline cancelled hundreds of flights in August, it did not cancel flights in that range in previous months.

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Concepción de León is a travel reporter based in New York. More about Concepción de León

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