Jamie Biesiada
At the beginning of every year, Travel Weekly dedicates an issue of the paper to predictions of what's to come in the next 12 months. Editors, myself included, take to our keyboards and share what we think are the logical next steps to trends we've been following, sometimes for years.
It's a good exercise to take stock of where the industry is and where it might be going. I often use it as an excuse to talk to advisors and agency owners about what they're seeing on the front lines of selling travel; the prior 12 months are usually a good indicator of the next dozen.
As a side note, in writing this column, I looked back on some previous Preview issues. In January 2020, I predicted that "the IC community, and the hosts and agencies that support it, face some big challenges in the year ahead and beyond." Even though I was talking about the need to educate new advisors, still a conversation worth having today -- boy, oh boy, I wasn't wrong about that one.
This January, I wrote about the trend of normalization that the entire travel industry had been experiencing throughout 2024. The agency community was no exception to that. While the years immediately after Covid were marked by a frenetic pace, the growth started to slow a bit last year. But at the beginning of this year, bookings still looked strong.
Now, six months into the year, it's a bit of a mixed bag.
A survey we fielded last month found that 57.7% of respondents were experiencing some kind of decrease in bookings (it was a significant decrease for 27.8% of those agents, a slight decrease for the others). Another 31.3% are experiencing an increase in bookings (a significant increase for 12.8% of those surveyed). Ten percent have seen no change.
Survey-takers indicated contributing factors to a decrease in bookings include the economy, consumer confidence and price sensitivity. That's not surprising: a lot has happened in the past six months, including the Department of Government Efficiency's reduction of the federal workforce, tariffs and a yo-yoing stock market, which has impacted consumer confidence.
It's clear that we've entered a new period in terms of travel trends, one where consumers might be tightening their belts a little. However, history has shown that, regardless of the circumstances, people will travel, albeit in a slightly different manner.
Covid was arguably the darkest time for advisors in recent memory as the industry ground to a halt. Relatively quickly, though, agencies started to pivot and offer different kinds of trips, like domestic vacations to national parks. Theme parks also did particularly well. It was a pretty big pivot (remember that word, everyone?), but for many it kept the lights on.
The post-Covid boom in travel might have left agents frenzied with call after call from travelers clawing at the walls, but at least it put money in the bank and established a good base of future clients.
Now is the time to tap into that base and get them thinking about their next trip, even if it's not an all-out, bucket-list vacation.
As for Preview 2026, I'd hesitate to make any early predictions. We still have another six months to get through, and who knows what awaits us in the second half of the year. It's probably safe to say, though, that advisors will still be putting in the work, serving clients and keeping the world moving.