It certainly seems like things are looking up. Travel things that is. I've been busy booking trips again - after the long pandemic pause, it's good to see people traveling again. But as verification of that, consider the following
According to this New York Times article, Marriott is reporting a jump in lodging demand as it sees tourism recover. Marriott is seeing a pent up demand especially from small to midsize groups as well as social groups that have been deferring travel. Business bookings are up but still well below recent trends. But they also report that travelers are combining their business and leisure travel more than before. Since many of our clients are retired, we don't really notice this last trend. But clearly we've seen up tick in leisure travel
Major airlines are reporting positive improved earnings as detailed here. International business travel remains lower, though domestic travel has clearly improved. United reported that it's international long haul and business travel" accelerated even faster than anticipated." We've certainly seen a lot more international bookings through United than anytime in the past 18 months/
So, hotel and air bookings in general confirm that travel is indeed looking up. We've been busy with 2022 and 2023 bookings. 2022 is really starting to book up - with some cruises largely sold out. There's no question about the pent up demand. And while many have suffered during the pandemic, the luxury market segment probably has more money now than they did before the pandemic due to record stock market performance. And luxury is exactly the type of travel we're seeing. Recently we've booked lots of river cruise trips to Europe and Ocean cruises to Alaska, the Baltics and Canada. We're seeing strong demand on Silversea, AmaWaterways, Viking River and Ocean, Oceania and Regent.