NEW YORK CITY—Arrivalist forecasts more than 110 million U.S. road trippers will travel via automobile during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays (December 23—January 2). This volume outpaces pre-pandemic levels in 2019 by 2.4 percent and last year’s holiday road trips by 9.2 percent.
“American road trip demand has built up a head of steam and neither germs, nor prices, nor the prospect of a recession are keeping people away from holiday traditions with their friends and family,” said Arrivalist Founder and CEO Cree Lawson. “Our Thanksgiving predictions were some of the most optimistic ones released and holiday road-tripping exceeded that high bar. We expect more of the same for these holidays.”
Arrivalist’s holiday forecast is based on the following factors:
- 2022 Thanksgiving road trips surpassed 2019 levels by 2.6 percent.
- According to the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), this year’s Thanksgiving flight check-ins were below 2019 numbers by 10 percent. This indicates that consumers are still wary of flight cancellations, delays, and high ticket prices.
- COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to have a limited impact on travel.
“For the past five weeks, Arrivalist’s Daily Travel Index has been trending positively,” said Balakumar Raghuraman, Arrivalist’s vice president of analytics and innovation. “This strong surge in year-end travel is an exciting milestone in the travel industry’s recovery from the pandemic.”
