post covid travel trends

Post-pandemic travel: the trends we’ll see when the world opens up again

Lecturer in Tourism, University of Central Lancashire

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Katerina Antoniou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Central Lancashire provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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It’s been a while since the question “where should I travel to next?” has felt within reach.

COVID-19 continues to affect travel by forcing governments to impose country-specific bans and restrictions . However, as vaccination programmes roll out, many of us hope to travel again at some point in the near future, even if not immediately. With that in mind, what are the factors that will shape our travel decisions in a post-pandemic era?

Post-COVID tourism

Although significant restrictions are still in place, travel agency adverts have become more frequent recently. According to reports , holiday bookings have once again begun to soar as people look beyond lockdowns.

COVID-19-related travel conditions will complicate holidays for the foreseeable future – including potential measures like requiring people to be vaccinated . The fear is that this will limit foreign travel options for those who haven’t received the vaccine. It may even affect people’s ability to travel domestically. Economic issues will also affect travel globally, since so many people have lost income during the pandemic.

These challenges will shape our decisions when it comes to choosing a holiday. By the time the pandemic ends, the days of choosing holidays based on destination or attractions will be over. Instead, the industry and travellers alike will be much more concerned with personal needs.

Faced with the desire to travel and practical obstacles against it, people are expected to make more considered travel choices. Tourists in the post-COVID era will be less willing to compromise on their next trip. They will have much higher expectations of hospitality service providers and be much more demanding. In order to keep up, the industry should prioritise offering services, facilities and experiences that cater to wellness, health, and overall wellbeing. They will need to focus on high hygiene standards, which tourists are expected to covet.

It won’t be surprising to see trends like health tourism, wellness tourism , spiritual and potentially religious tourism rising in popularity too. Thanks to the pandemic, tourists are paying more attention than ever to these needs whether they’re urgent health concerns, luxury treatments, or the pursuit of physical, intellectual and spiritual wellness after over a year of living with restrictions.

Human-oriented tourism

According to tourism academic Fabio Carbone, post-COVID tourism is also expected to focus more on people than destinations. Those eager to get away from measures like social distancing will likely use travel to embrace existing relationships with loved ones living abroad or seek new encounters. Carbone suggests that because of this, post-Covid tourism will pivot towards prioritising human development, dialogue, and peace.

Popular types of tourism are therefore likely to include: travel for visiting friends and relatives, volunteer tourism, and peace tourism.

Volunteer tourism – or voluntourism – is a niche tourist activity which essentially means volunteering in a foreign destination. Although some question whether it positively contributes to developing countries and underprivileged communities, voluntourism has generated valuable humanitarian work. With economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic having hit developing countries more severely , effective voluntourism isn’t only desired, it’s necessary.

Read more: Dark tourism memorial sites will help us heal from the trauma of coronavirus

Peace tourism , on the other hand, refers to an interest in visiting specific destinations in order to either examine how peace is developed and celebrated there through research or studies, or contribute to a destination’s efforts to establish peace after conflict. Peace tourism typically involves visiting peace memorials or conflict zones with the aim of learning from the mistakes of past wars and helping to resolve or prevent existing conflict.

Examples of peace tourism activities include educational field trips to sites such as the Berlin Wall Memorial and the Hiroshima Peace Park . It might also take the form of attending workshops and conferences among conflict resolution professionals or going on guided peace walks that delve into histories of achieving or searching for peace. Visiting famous peace artworks and peace-themed exhibitions , as well as festivals and perfomances are also considered peace tourism activities.

The tourism industry has a unique opportunity to reflect on its future. If it wants to make an impact, it needs to prioritise providing quality, affordable experiences and putting customers first. Whenever travel resumes in the post-pandemic world, promoting specific destinations and landmarks will no longer make sense. It may be difficult in the face of restrictive and ever-changing travel corridors, but the travel industry has little choice but to remodel holidays around catering to our wants and desires.

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What next for travel and tourism? Here's what the experts say

In many countries, more than 80% of travel and tourism spending actually comes from the domestic market. Image:  Unsplash/Surface

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Stay up to date:, travel and tourism.

• In 2020 alone, the travel and tourism sector lost $4.5 trillion and 62 million jobs globally.
• But as the world recovers from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, travel and tourism can bounce back as an inclusive, sustainable, and resilient sector.
• Two experts highlight some of the key transformations in the sector going forward during the World Economic Forum's Our World in Transformation series.

The Travel & Tourism sector was one of the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving not only companies but also tourism-driven economies severely affected by shutdowns, travel restrictions and the disappearance of international travel.

In 2020 alone, the sector lost $4.5 trillion and 62 million jobs, impacting the living standards and well-being of communities across the globe. Moreover, the halt in international travel gave both leisure and business travellers the chance to consider the impact of their choices on the climate and environment.

Amid shifting demand dynamics and future opportunities and risks, a more inclusive, sustainable and resilient travel and tourism sector can be - and needs to be - built.

The World Economic Forum's Travel & Tourism Development Index 2021 finds that embedding inclusivity, sustainability and resilience into the travel and tourism sector as it recovers, will ensure it can continue to be a driver of global connectivity, peace and economic and social progress.

We spoke to Sandra Carvao , Chief of Market Intelligence and Competitiveness at the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), and Liz Ortiguera , CEO of the Pacific Asia Travel Association in Thailand (PATA), and asked them to highlight some of the key areas of risk and opportunity in the sector during an episode of the World Economic Forum's Our World in Transformation series.

Have you read?

Travel & tourism development index 2021: rebuilding for a sustainable and resilient future, towards resilience and sustainability: travel and tourism development recovery, how can we really achieve sustainability in the travel sector, what are some of the top global trends you're witnessing currently in the travel and tourism sector.

Liz Ortiguera: Given the extended lockdown that we had on travel with the pandemic, vacation for friends and relatives (VFR) is now a high priority for people who haven’t been in touch for a long time thanks to the pandemic. So, people are reconnecting. And that kind of links to the second trend, which is multi-purpose or blended travel. Never before, particularly now that we can connect digitally through Zoom, has the ability to work from anywhere enabled travellers to cover multiple purposes, like visits with friends and multiple business trips. So, we'll find that the duration of travel and the length of stay is longer. And third is the continued high focus on safety and wellness which is top of mind for travellers due to the pandemic. All travel is wellness-related now.

Sandra Carvao: I think there is a bigger concern with sustainability, which is very welcome in our industry. Consumers, particularly the younger generation, are much more aware of the impact they have, not only on the environment but also socially and on the communities they live in. We've also seen an increase in expenditure per trip, so I think people are very eager to go outside, and they're staying longer. And on the other side, I think there are some challenges: we’re seeing a rise in late bookings because restrictions can change at short notice and that’s having an impact on the decisions of travellers. This is putting pressure on the industry in terms of planning and anticipating fluctuations in demand.

Social media surveys have shown that travellers who have immersive experiences are more likely to post about them, which is good for the industry.

What is community-based tourism and why is it important?

Sandra Carvao: One of the positive impacts of the pandemic is that people are looking for local experiences and are spending more time with communities. So, the concept of community-based tourism is obviously one that puts the community at the core of every development, ensuring that it's engaged and empowered and that it benefits. At the UNWTO, we worked with the G20 and the Saudi presidency back in 2020 and produced a framework for tourism development in communities, which states that communities need to be part of the planning and management of tourism activities. We need to go beyond traditional definitions of community to a point where the industry leans on partnerships between the public and private sectors and communities.

Liz Ortiguera: In July 2022, PATA is hosting a destination-marketing forum and one of the key themes is community-based tourism. The purpose is really to put the community and authenticity-in-culture activities at the heart of the travel experience. There are benefits for all stakeholders. One is that travellers can have an authentic experience. They're not in overcrowded, touristic locations and they experience something new and unique within the community. These experiences are designed in partnership with communities who get the benefit of financial inclusion, and if activities are designed properly, the reinforcement of their cultural heritage. Governments also engage in economic development more broadly across countries. Another interesting trend is creative tourism, which means you create an experience for tourists to participate in, like a dance lesson, or a cooking lesson. Social media surveys have shown that travellers who have these kinds of immersive experiences are more likely to post about them online and that's good for the industry.

It is important to emphasize that virtual experiences, while they are a fun tool, can never replace visiting a destination.

How is technology and innovation helping to leverage cultural resources?

Sandra Carvao: One interesting trend we’re seeing is that more and more people are booking trips directly, so communities need to be supported to digitize their systems. Education and upskilling of communities are important so that they can leverage digital platforms to market themselves. From the tourists’ perspective, it is important to emphasize that virtual experiences, while they are a fun tool, can never replace visiting a destination.

Liz Ortiguera: People have been living virtually for more than two years. Amazing innovations have emerged, such as virtual reality and augmented reality, and all kinds of applications and tools. But the important thing is the experience. The destination. Real-world experiences need to remain front and centre. Technology tools should be viewed as enablers and not the core experience. And when it comes to staff, technology can really democratize education. There’s an opportunity to mobilize a mobile-first approach for those who are on the frontlines, or out in the field, and can’t easily access computers, but need to get real-time information.

How is the sector dealing with labour shortages and re-employment of the workforce?

Liz Ortiguera: Labour shortages are much more dynamic in North America and in Europe. But it’s having a knock-on effect on Asia. If, for example, their air carriers are limited by staff and they have to cancel flights, which we're very much seeing out of Europe, seating capacity then becomes a limiting factor in the recovery of Asia Pacific. That's the main constraint right now. And compounding that is the rising price of fuel. But people in the Asia Pacific are keen to get reemployed.

Sandra Carvao: Labour shortages are a priority for the sector in countries around the world. Many workers left the sector during the pandemic and the uncertainty that surrounded the measures taken to contain it left many people unsure of whether the sector would recover. It is time to address things like conditions, scheduling, and work/life balance, all things which have been top of mind for workers during the pandemic. As the sector recovers, we need time to bring new hires on board and to train them to take over where those who switched jobs left off.

Are we seeing a growing trend towards domestic tourism?

Sandra Carvao: We’re talking about 9 billion people travelling within their own countries. And in many countries, for example in Germany, more than 80% of the tourism spending actually comes from the domestic market, similarly in countries like Spain and even smaller economies. Whenever it's possible to travel again, domestic markets tend to be more resilient. They kick off first mostly due to perceptions of safety and security issues. As the world economy recovers from the pandemic, there is a good opportunity for nations to rethink their strategy, look at the domestic market in a different way, and leverage different products for domestic tourists.

When it comes to sustainable tourism, how quickly could we mainstream eco-friendly modes of transportation?

Sandra Carvao: Transport is one of the key contributors to energy impacts and tourism. But it's also important that we look at the whole value chain. The UNWTO together with the One Planet Sustainable Tourism Programme just launched the Glasgow Declaration, which includes green commitments from destinations and companies. We’re seeing a strong movement in the airline industry to reduce emissions. But I think, obviously, technological developments will be very important. But it's also very important to look at market shifts. And we can't forget small islands and developing states that rely on long-haul air travel. It’s important to make sure that we invest in making the problem much less impactful.

Liz Ortiguera: 'Travel and tourism' is such a broad encompassing term that it’s not fair to call it an industry: it is actually a sector of many industries. The pandemic taught us how broad the impact of the sector is in terms of sustainability. There's a big movement in terms of destination resilience, which is the foundation for achieving sustainability in the journey to net-zero. We now have standards to mitigate that impact including meetings-and-events (MIE) standards and standards for tour operators. There are multiple areas within our industry where progress is being made. And I'm really encouraged by the fact that there is such a focus not just within the sector but also among consumers.

This interview was first done at the World Economic Forum's studios in Geneva as part of 'Our World in Transformation' - a live interactive event series for our digital members. To watch all the episodes and join future sessions, please subscribe here .

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Post-Omicron Travel Trends Reveal Major Shifts in Pandemic Attitudes

After weathering another winter spike in covid cases, travelers are planning 2022 trips with a fervor unlike anything we’ve seen since the start of the pandemic..

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Travelers are in a ready-to-go state-of-mind.

Illustration by GoodStudio/Shutterstock

Last month, like countless Americans, my family finally received the dreaded, unwanted guest into our home: COVID came for a visit. My three-year-old preschool-attending daughter tested positive first, followed by my husband, then me. Four of us (including our vaccinated five-year-old son, who somehow never tested positive) entered a two-week home quarantine, thanks to a very inconvenient domino effect of cases. The kids remained healthy and full of toddlerish energy, while my husband and I—both boosted—hobbled along with a patchwork of cold-like symptoms, fatigue, and brain fog. Some days were easier than others.

I’m not sure when exactly during quarantine this happened, but there was a moment when I became rather obsessed (possessed?) by the notion of a truly amazing getaway for our family once this debacle was over. The light at the end of our COVID tunnel would be a thrice-postponed trip to Hawai‘i during my son’s February school break. The thought of exploring Oʻahu’s North Shore and Maui’s beautiful beaches with them, taking sunset walks along the coast, and disconnecting from our home life as we immersed ourselves into our temporary Hawaiian home, had me downright giddy.

Turns out, I wasn’t the only one feeling this way.

“American travel sentiment has . . . soared to levels not seen since the summer 2021 vaccine rollout high,” travel and tourism market research firm Destination Analysts reported on January 31.

According to Destination Analysts’ independent survey of more than 1,200 American travelers, 81.5 percent are in a ready-to-travel state of mind, “among the highest levels it has ever been in the pandemic era,” according to the firm. Additionally, nearly 77 percent of respondents said they were very excited to travel in the next 12 months, including internationally.

More than three-quarters of respondents have dreamt of and planned travel in the past week alone, the firm stated.

Sound familiar? It did to Brooke Lavery, a partner at New York–based luxury travel consultancy Local Foreigner .

“Historically, people return from their holiday travels eager to plot out their year. But this year, the first three weeks of January were very quiet and frankly a lot of our clients—and team—had COVID,” says Lavery.

There has been a dramatic shift following that initial three-week lull. “Since then, there has been a surge of requests, both former clients who haven’t traveled much during COVID and many new clients,” she says.

Lavery says that emerging from the Omicron surge, a lot of her clients are scrambling to plan one last-minute trip for now, followed with another trip for later in the year. With some international destinations still closed or just starting to open back up, her clients are booking a lot of domestic and Caribbean travel, but also Africa and increasingly Europe.

She adds that heading into 2022, travelers now have a much more relaxed attitude toward COVID than they did before. “It’s no longer a factor in holding them back from travel. I think people are more nervous about getting stuck somewhere than they are of getting COVID,” says Lavery, whose consultancy is a member of the larger luxury travel advisor consortium Virtuoso .

William Kiburz, vice president of Coronet Travel Ltd. and a member of the AFAR Travel Advisory Council , says his clients are experiencing pandemic fatigue, too, and really “just want to get away”—far away. “People are canceling their domestic plans and looking at longer-haul trips,” he says, noting that his clients are tired of waiting or putting plans on hold.

Global tour operator G Adventures reported its bookings have suddenly bounced back in a big way as well.

“The month of January was one of the biggest for G Adventures since the start of the pandemic, with a huge surge in bookings that were for trips departing within three months—which points to recovering Omicron cases or just pandemic fatigue in general,” says Steve Lima, director of marketing for G Adventures in the United States.

Popular destinations for G Adventures travelers include Peru, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Egypt. Customers are booking bigger, longer trips, notes Lima: “In the case of those who had Omicron, it’s quite likely that they are eager to start traveling again due to having increased antibodies post-infection and [want to] embark on that big trip ASAP.”

Lima and others reported that while travelers are eager to get back out there, they remain focused on the outdoors and being outside as much as possible. Many travelers still want to stick with their pod (aka their family or an intimate group of friends), according to luxury tour operator Abercrombie & Kent .

After some disappointing cancellations and disruptions caused by the Omicron variant, A&K now sees guests planning bigger and more splurge-worthy trips, according to founder Geoffrey Kent.

Private flights and villa stays are still in high demand, says Kent. He adds that among the many shifts brought on by the pandemic, there is growing interest in slow travel and more immersive experiences focused on one region.

Remaining cautiously optimistic as we await the end(emic)

That travelers are planning and booking ambitious trips for 2022 indicates a high level of hope that the circumstances of the pandemic will continue to improve. But will they, really? (We’ve been down this road before, ahem: mid-2021, when we thought the vaccine rollouts would lead us to freedom from COVID.)

When asked if the United States is gradually shifting from a pandemic to COVID being endemic, Dr. William Schaffner , medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) and a professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases, said, “I would think . . . yes.”

He explains, “Omicron is spreading so widely, it’s leaving some natural protection in its wake. After it gets out of your body, it’s going to leave you protected for a period of time—we don’t know for how long.”

Between the protection that comes from the highly contagious Omicron variant, along with the vaccine and booster shot campaigns, “I think our population is getting progressively more protected and this will enable us to go from pandemic to endemic.”

Of course, there are some cautionary notes.

“As we move within the United States from pandemic to endemic, obviously we are going to ease up on our restrictions. However, much of the world is experiencing a lot of COVID transmission [and] that’s a circumstance where yet another variant could show up,” says Dr. Schaffner. “We don’t know that it will. If a variant of concern would show up, then we would have to respond to it and find out what it is about this variant that would oblige us to once again do some things differently.”

As the Omicron surge starts to recede and people begin to feel more jubilant, he acknowledges no one wants to hear this right now. But for travelers heading out on journeys near and far, he urges them to continue to wear their masks during travel, especially when they’re in public spaces and indoors. “It’s important to understand that the virus will not disappear,” he adds. “It will be with us.”

>> Next: Where to Go in 2022

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Travel’s Theme for 2022? ‘Go Big’

With Omicron cases ebbing, the industry is looking for a significant rebound in spring and summer. Here’s what to expect, in the air, at the rental car counter and beyond.

By The New York Times

As governments across the world loosen coronavirus restrictions and shift their approach to accepting Covid-19 as a manageable part of everyday life, the travel industry is growing hopeful that this will be the year that travel comes roaring back.

Travel agents and operators have reported a significant increase in bookings in recent weeks for the upcoming spring and summer seasons. The World Travel & Tourism Council (W.T.T.C.), which represents the global travel and tourism industry, projects that travel and tourism in the United States will reach prepandemic levels in 2022, contributing nearly $2 trillion to the U.S. economy. The council also anticipates outbound travel from the United States will increase; it projects bookings over the Easter holiday period to be up by 130 percent over last year.

“Our latest forecast shows the recovery significantly picking up this year as infection rates subside and travelers continue benefiting from the protection offered by the vaccine and boosters,” said Julia Simpson, the president and chief executive officer of the W.T.T.C. “As travel restrictions ease and consumer confidence returns, we expect a welcome release of pent-up travel and demand.”

While uncertainty remains over the course of the pandemic and government policies on mask mandates and testing requirements for travel, the industry is seeing a strong desire among travelers to take big bucket list trips this year, particularly to far-flung international destinations and European cities.

“Travel is no longer just about ‘going somewhere,’” said Christie Hudson, a senior public relations manager for Expedia. “Coming out of such a long period of constraints and limitations, 2022 will be the year we wring every bit of richness and meaning out of our experiences.”

Here are some of the trends you can expect to see.

Air Travel: Fewer restrictions, but for now the masks stay on

Flying in 2022 looks poised to be much like flying in 2021: reminiscent of prepandemic normal at times, infuriating at others. A primary difference is that there will be more people on planes and in airports — 150 percent as many passengers are expected to fly this year as did last year, according to The International Air Transport Association , which represents nearly 300 airlines.

In terms of where you can fly, you’ll have more options than last year. Destinations that have long been closed to most travelers, including Australia, the Philippines and Bali, have started reopening. Airlines have been gradually adding back old routes and expanding with new ones. In the spring, American Airlines, for example, plans to add six new routes from Boston. JetBlue will soon fly direct from New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Kansas City and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, among other locations.

You’ll still need to check the latest entry requirements before flying internationally. There are currently more than 100,000 health and travel restrictions in place, according to Meghan Benton , a research director at the Migration Policy Institute, which tracks them. Though that’s around the same number as a year ago, she noted, there has been a move away from quarantines and outright bans of nonessential visitors toward vaccination and testing requirements. Recently, a growing number of destinations, including Britain, have also reconsidered the merits of entry testing.

That flight for a summer getaway could cost less than it did before the pandemic. Fares are down 18 percent from 2019, according to Airlines for America, which represents seven major airlines. In January, the cost of international airfares purchased hit an all-time low since Hopper, a booking app, began tracking them in 2014. Predicting whether, when and where they will rise is harder than it was before the pandemic, however, as new variants, evolving health threats, travel restrictions and pandemic psychology have upended traditional pricing patterns. Fortunately, most airlines are continuing to waive flight change fees on all but basic economy flights, said Brett Snyder, the founder of Cranky Flier , an airline industry site.

When flying in the United States, everyone will need to wear a mask until at least late March. That’s when the federal mask mandate is set to expire. It has been extended before and could be extended again. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief medical adviser, is among those who have said that masks on planes should be here to stay. Gary Leff, who writes about air travel for View from the Wing, a site focused on air travel, said he agrees with the betting markets , which predict that the mask mandate will go away by the November midterm elections. Regardless, there will be more alcohol in the air. On Feb. 16, Southwest will serve drinks for the first time in two years. — Heather Murphy

Lodging: Hotels fight back, sometimes with robots

This may be the year travelers return to hotels. In a report for the American Hotel & Lodging Association, Oxford Economics, an economic forecasting company, expects total bookings to nearly equal 2019 stays, though a significant source of revenue — more than roughly $48 billion spent before the pandemic on food and drink, meeting spaces and more — will largely remain missing, given the continued slump in business meetings and group events.

Leisure travelers have kept the industry afloat and in certain areas — especially mountain and coastal destinations — vacation business is booming. With record demand, rates rose at escapist resorts like the Chebeague Island Inn in Maine even in the traditional off-season months.

Now, corporate lodging specialists like Level Hotels & Furnished Suites , which has high-rise apartments in four cities including Seattle, are going after leisure travelers, touting amenities like fitness centers. And why not? During the pandemic, many travelers discovered the privacy offered by rental residences. According to AirDNA , which analyzes the short-term rental market, vacation home bookings were up between 30 and 60 percent in small cities and resort destinations compared to 2019, though big-city rentals are down about 25 percent.

Urban hotels hope to compete for digital nomads by adding stylish extended-stay properties, social attractions and better work spaces. Denver’s Catbird hotel offers ergonomic studios with kitchenettes, plus a rooftop bar and rental gear, including scooters, ukuleles and air fryers. The Hoxton chain’s Working From co-working spaces are attached to its hotels in Chicago and London.

Adapting to lean times, many hotels have outsourced operations beyond laundry and landscaping, into food and recreational services. The new app-based service Breeze works with hotels to provide room service either from on-site restaurants or neighboring ones.

The pandemic has also hastened the adoption of automation in hotels — such as keyless check-in, digital staff communication and room delivery by robots — as a cost-effective response to the labor shortage.

“High tech is the new high touch,” said Chekitan Dev, the Singapore Tourism Distinguished Professor of marketing and management at Cornell University’s hotel school.

Hotel sustainability initiatives look to go further than “towel-washing optional” offers.

Hilton plans to introduce what it says is the country’s first net-zero hotel this year with the solar-powered Hotel Marcel New Haven, Tapestry Collection in New Haven, Conn. SCP Hotels , which operates seven hotels around the country, aims to go zero-waste in 2022.

The industry’s focus on leisure travelers may inspire new diversions. A hotel that can no longer afford to employ 50 servers in its events department might use the space to hold a yoga class or a talk by a local designer, according to Vikram Singh, an independent hotel consultant. “These are the experiences people remember more than whether the pillow was soft,” he said. — Elaine Glusac

Rental Cars: Still pricey, and hard to get

This time last year, Jonathan Weinberg, the founder and chief executive of AutoSlash , an online service that makes and tracks discount car rentals, noticed that rental vehicles were unexpectedly scarce and overpriced for the mid-February Presidents’ Day break, an early indication of the post-vaccine travel rebound.

In 2022, it’s looking worse. A Feb. 1 search in Phoenix for the upcoming holiday weekend showed all the major car rental companies were sold out and just two smaller agencies, Sixt and Nu, had cars, starting at $130 a day, more than twice what they might have been prepandemic.

“Even last year, we didn’t see inventory this tight until a week or so out,” Mr. Weinberg said.

It’s possible that consumers have heeded the advice to book cars early after last year’s shortages. But rental agencies still haven’t been able to expand their fleets — thanks largely to slowdowns in automotive manufacturing — and the anticipated return of travel after Omicron suggests more car trouble ahead.

“It doesn’t look like it’s going to improve at all in the next year,” said Mike Taylor, the senior travel analyst at J.D. Power, a market research company, noting that in addition to higher prices, renters may be getting older cars with high mileage.

According to the travel search engine Kayak , rental car rates last summer peaked in July at a national average of $119 a day. Currently, the national average is about $66, or 27 percent higher than last year at this time, and a 41 percent increase over 2019 for the same period. Searches have more than doubled compared to this time last year.

“Road-tripping is a more predictable way of travel these days, where you can avoid crowds and unexpected delays,” said Matt Clarke, the vice president of North American marketing for Kayak, which recently added search results from companies like Kyte , a car rental company that delivers cars to consumers, and Turo , a car-sharing site.

Such alternatives may have benefited from the rental car crunch. In the first nine months of 2021, revenue at Turo grew more than 200 percent, compared to the same period in 2020, according to a recent filing to go public.

“For many travelers, Turo was the least crazy option from a price standpoint,” said Turo’s chief executive Andre Haddad.

For now, car-sharing sites are better bets for finding electric vehicles, although Hertz announced in the fall that it would have 100,000 E. V.s by the end of this year. At Turo, E.V. listings have grown from about 200 in 2014 to more than 27,000 in 2021.

“We’re already seeing activity for March and April, and that is not normal,” said Ryan Hagler, a Maui resident who uses Turo to rent 10 vehicles, including six Teslas, which start around $80 a day. “I’m assuming it’s going to be pretty busy this year.” — Elaine Glusac

Destinations: Cities are back

This March, Virginia Devlin of Chicago is headed to New York City with her daughter, a musical theater student, to celebrate two years’ worth of missed birthday trips. They’ll see Broadway shows and visit Chinatown for dim sum. Tracy Lippes, of Short Hills, N.J., is ready to go to Paris. “I can’t wait to stay in a beautiful hotel, shop, visit museums and eat at great restaurants,” Ms. Lippes said of her March trip. Greg Siskind, an immigration attorney in Memphis, is thrilled to have an in-person conference in London next month, and plans to arrive a few days early to enjoy the city with his adult daughters.

Yes, city travel is back. After more than two years of avoiding urban centers, travelers are eager to return to their favorite metropolis and swan dive into the sights, bites and sounds of a city that is not their own.

“It was a lift to everyone when the U.K. dumped Covid mandates on Jan. 26,” said Henley Vazquez, a co-founder of FORA, a travel agency in New York City . “Bookings are spiking for classic European destinations, particularly Paris and London. Clients want to reconnect with special hotels and restaurants and simply bask in the culture.”

In the United States, Shawna Owen, the president of Huffman Travel , a Chicago-based agency that specializes in luxury and family travel, is planning long weekend trips to New York City. “New York is buzzing again and clients are excited to dine at hot spots and enjoy the city’s dynamism.”

Underscoring the New York-is-back trend, the travel booking site Skyscanner reports that New York City is its top booked domestic destination so far in 2022 and the online travel agency Expedia has had a 13 percent increase in searches for New York City.

As for Europe, Paris and London are the top searched international destinations on Scott’s Cheap Flights , a service that tracks flight deals. Hotel searches on Expedia jumped 62 percent for London and 51 percent for Paris since Jan. 1, and the mobile app Hopper reports that London and Paris clock in as two of the most searched international destinations for spring 2022.

With restrictions easing, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts reported an 80 percent increase in its bookings in Paris, London and New York from December to Jan. 16.

In London, the luxury travel outfit, Noteworthy , has seen bookings of its private tours to iconic British sites increase 145 percent in February over the same time in 2021. “ The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee has definitely been a tourist draw,” said Nicola Butler, the company’s owner and managing director. — Amy Tara Koch

Resorts: All-inclusives, beyond the beach

A new breed of domestic resort is pioneering an almost all-inclusive model, taking the guesswork out of where to eat and what to do. Why “almost?” These properties don’t include alcoholic beverages in their nightly rate, and, perhaps fittingly, boast enviable wine and spirits collections. A major catalyst for the trend: pandemic-scarred travelers wary of leaving the grounds of a resort once they arrive, according to Erina Pindar, the managing director of SmartFlyer , a luxury travel agency. “The almost all-inclusive is incredibly popular,” she said, “we expect demand to continue to be strong.”

Hotels.com reports that searches for this type of resort have increased significantly compared with the same time frame in 2019. “After the stress of the last few years,” said Mel Dohmen, a Hotels.com spokeswoman, “travelers are looking for stays where they can be doted on.”

“Our clients see these resorts as a hassle-free option,” said Jennifer Doncsecz, president of the travel agency V.I.P. Vacations .

The San Ysidro Ranch in Montecito, Calif., long beloved by luminaries like Winston Churchill and Vivien Leigh, pivoted to an almost-all inclusive model in 2020. In addition to folding the cost of meals into the nightly rate, which starts at $2,495, it did away with extraneous charges like resort fees and parking. “We figured, with all the charges we’ve gotten rid of, what are people going to spend money on? Wine,” said Ian Williams, the Ranch’s general manager. “We’ve had no complaints. This past year has been our busiest ever.”

Given the complications caused by the pandemic, Mr. Williams and his team sought to streamline the travel process. “We want guests to check out and spend their trip home talking about what an amazing vacation they had,” he said, “not some miscellaneous charge on their bill.”

Beachside buffets and watered down margaritas might rule at the traditional all-inclusive; not at the Ranch. “Every guest, if they want the Wagyu for dinner, fine,” said Mr. Williams. “Caviar? Great. Maine lobster? No problem.”

When High Hampton , a Cashiers, N.C., resort that dates back to 1933, remodeled in 2020, it folded breakfast and dinner into its nightly rate, which starts at $595, “because it removes that pressure of where to dine next,” said Scott Greene, the resort’s general manager. (The amber-lit, oak-paneled dining room is always the right answer.)

The same logic has long been in place at Blackberry Farm and Blackberry Mountain , two resorts in Walland, Tenn. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are included in the nightly rate — $845 and up at the Farm, $1,395 and up at the Mountain —- along with all the snacks in the minibar. “We’re exceeding prepandemic occupancy,” said Matt Alexander, Blackberry’s president. SmartFlyer saw a 327-percent increase in revenue from bookings at the two properties in 2021 as compared to 2019. — Sheila Yasmin Marikar

Wellness: Sexual healing

Sexual wellness is one of the fastest growing corners of the global wellness industry, with travel increasingly part of the experience. More hotel brands and relationship therapists are offering couples retreats and beachfront sessions with intimacy coaches and guided anatomical explorations to meet the needs of travelers seeking greater couple satisfaction and personal pleasure.

“People still have stigma around couples therapy and coming to therapy, but nobody ever had a problem going on vacation,” said Marissa Nelson, a sex therapist who runs retreats in Barbados, Hawaii, St. Lucia and Washington, D.C., through her company IntimacyMoons (seven days in St. Lucia starts at $7,500). She also offers virtual sessions; even when retreats were shut down in 2020, she noticed couples were traveling — to Airbnbs or on road trips — before logging on to work with her.

Travel is a powerful tool for unlocking intimacy, said Shlomo Slatkin, a rabbi and certified relationship therapist. His company, The Marriage Restoration Project , focuses on married couples. In the past year, in response to a growing demand to combine therapy and travel, he has introduced his first destination retreats — which cost between $4,000 and $5,000 and take place in Costa Rica, Mexico and Miami.

“Going away is really powerful, because changing the relationship requires a paradigm shift,” he said. “The lockdowns brought out a lot of maintenance issues in relationships that need to be addressed.”

Tara Skubella, a tantric guide, works with both couples and single women. Tantra, a spiritual philosophy with roots in medieval India, includes practices like tantric sex, and Ms. Skubella offers services, including chakra work, which focuses on energy points in the body. Her retreats in Costa Rica and Colorado (starting at $499) have been mostly sold out since 2020, she said.

“It seems very aligned to Covid and breaking out of isolation,” she said. “Society is realizing tantra isn’t only about sex, but about inner connection and healing.”

In March, the hotelier St. Regis will launch a retreat with the sex coach Bibi Brzozka on intimacy, conscious sexuality and emotional awareness at the St. Regis Punta Mita Resort in Mexico ($2,680). In April, Six Senses Ibiza will host Pleasure Principles — Journey of Women’s Sexual Wellness , a six-night stay focusing on female sexual empowerment ($4,500). They are the first sexuality-focused retreats for both brands. — Debra Kamin

Family Travel: Going on the edu-vacation

After two years of quarantines and classroom closures, millions of children across the country have fallen behind in class . And parents, eager for lesson plans that can supplement learning, are now seeking experiences with an educational bent when they travel.

“Previously, families didn’t ask in advance about what educational activities are available at the resorts. Now they do,” said Chitra Stern, founder and chief executive of the family-friendly Martinhal resorts in Portugal. Nearly half of her new bookings, Ms. Stern said, now include questions about on-site educational opportunities for children. Last year, the luxury resorts began partnering with the United Lisbon International School to offer a two-week educational summer camp for its younger guests at Martinhal Lisbon. Courses, which are available for children ages 3 to 17, begin at 440 euros (around $500).

After a pandemic dip, enrollments are on the rise for family-learning itineraries with the tour operator Road Scholar , which produces educational travel programs for all ages. Options for children and their caregivers, which start at $699 per adult and $449 per child, include combining history and geography with spotting grizzlies in the Canadian Rockies , or learning French while taking a scavenger hunt through Paris’s Louvre .

And noting an uptick in children road tripping with their parents, the Colorado Tourism Office last summer launched Schoolcations , a series of free itineraries based on Colorado road trips and designed for grades K-5.

There are also more opportunities to learn back at the hotel. Family Coppola Hideaways — a group of retreats owned by the film director Francis Ford Coppola — now offers the Coppola Curriculum at its properties in Belize and Guatemala. Half-day lessons cost $150 per day for children and include courses in science (like counting bird species) and art (like local textile looming). In Florida, Isla Bella Beach Resort and Oceans Edge Resort & Marina now partner with Marine Science Camp for classes with marine scientists, geared to elementary school children (free for hotel guests). In California, attendance at the Artisans in Residence program at Carmel Valley Ranch — taught in the apiary, organic garden and goat creamery, and starting at $85 for adults and $65 for children — has doubled.

For some, a desire for extra credit also means going for an extra splurge. At the luxury travel agency Black Tomato , bucket-list family travel now accounts for 55 percent of bookings, with the majority of requests falling into what the company defines as BFG travel: Big Family Get-Togethers. So the company has rolled out a family-focused education track, Field Trip , which begins at around $5,800 per person; courses include a physics lesson at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland and a social studies-focused hike through Bhutan’s Gangtey Valley to meet a revered monk.

“Thematically, for 2022 family bookings, it’s all about intrepid adventure mixed with cultural immersion, ecological outdoor experiences, intrepid luxury hotels and even pop-up glamping setups — definitely bucket-list and remote,” said Tom Marchant, Black Tomato’s owner and co-founder. — Debra Kamin

Cruises: Smaller boats and luxury destinations

After two years of devastating losses and a tentative restart last June, the cruise industry has faced a challenging start to 2022, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant of the coronavirus caused cases to surge onboard ships, forcing some cruise lines to cancel voyages and change itineraries.

But demand for future cruises is still high, especially among dedicated cruise fans. A recent survey on cruiser sentiment by the online review site Cruise Critic found that 52 percent of the 6,400 cruisers surveyed were currently looking to book a cruise, with 40 percent hoping to set sail in the next six months.

A 2022 report on the outlook for the industry, published in January by the Cruise Lines International Association, the industry’s trade group, highlighted how major companies are bouncing back from the pandemic despite recent hurdles.

More than 75 percent of CLIA member ships have returned to service, with 100 percent expected to restart operations by August 2022. Additionally, 16 new cruise ships from major lines like Carnival, MSC, Royal Caribbean and Disney will launch in 2022.

One of the biggest cruise trends for 2022 is luxury expedition voyages, appealing to a growing number of travelers throughout the pandemic because they typically sail on smaller ships and steer away from crowded destinations.

“The itineraries vary pretty significantly from those of the larger, more mainstream lines,” said Colleen McDaniel, the editor in chief of Cruise Critic. “Due to their size, luxury ships are able to sail to more remote destinations — so even if you’re sailing in the Caribbean, your ports of call will likely be further removed from the masses, and likely somewhere you might have never been before.”

Smaller river and expedition cruises are also expected to become more popular this year as cruisers seek out big bucket-list destinations and more sustainable ways to travel. Responding to the demand, Hurtigruten, a Norwegian line that specializes in expedition cruises, has added new itineraries to its Galápagos Islands excursions, offering a range of small-ship carbon-neutral expedition sailings that will cover the full span of the remote 19-island archipelago.

“A very positive trend we’ve seen throughout the pandemic is that travelers are increasingly eco-conscious; meaning they do their homework on brands, including cruise ships, to make sure they align with their personal values.” said Daniel Skjeldam, the chief executive of Hurtigruten Group.

The company is also expanding its grand expedition cruise program, offering three unique cruises from the North to South Pole after the success of two similar sold-out sailings scheduled for the fall. The itineraries include destinations like Alaska, Iceland, Greenland, the Northwest Passage sea route, South America and Antarctica.

“After having been isolated for two years, people really want to do something they really can look forward to,” Mr. Skjeldam said. “Something perhaps more active and interesting than their normal prepandemic holiday.” — Ceylan Yeginsu

52 Places for a Changed World

The 2022 list highlights places around the globe where travelers can be part of the solution.

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 for a Changed World for 2022.

An earlier version of this article mischaracterized Kyte, a car rental business. Kyte is a car rental company that delivers cars to consumers; it is not a car-sharing website.

How we handle corrections

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Th ree-Year Cruise, Unraveled:  The Life at Sea cruise was supposed to be the ultimate bucket-list experience : 382 port calls over 1,095 days. Here’s why  those who signed up are seeking fraud charges  instead.

TikTok’s Favorite New ‘Reality Show’:  People on social media have turned the unwitting passengers of a nine-month world cruise  into  “cast members”  overnight.

Dipping Their Toes: Younger generations of travelers are venturing onto ships for the first time . Many are saving money.

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• Data Descriptor
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• Published: 23 September 2021

A database of travel-related behaviors and attitudes before, during, and after COVID-19 in the United States

• Rishabh Singh Chauhan   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7188-557X 1 ,
• Matthew Wigginton Bhagat-Conway   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1210-2982 2 ,
• Denise Capasso da Silva   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1414-8439 3 ,
• Deborah Salon   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2240-8408 2 ,
• Ali Shamshiripour 1 ,
• Ehsan Rahimi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8649-7542 1 ,
• Sara Khoeini 3 ,
• Abolfazl (Kouros) Mohammadian   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3595-3664 1 ,
• Sybil Derrible   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2939-6016 1 &
• Ram Pendyala 3  

Scientific Data volume  8 , Article number:  245 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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• Interdisciplinary studies
• Research data

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted billions of people around the world. To capture some of these impacts in the United States, we are conducting a nationwide longitudinal survey collecting information about activity and travel-related behaviors and attitudes before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey questions cover a wide range of topics including commuting, daily travel, air travel, working from home, online learning, shopping, and risk perception, along with attitudinal, socioeconomic, and demographic information. The survey is deployed over multiple waves to the same respondents to monitor how behaviors and attitudes evolve over time. Version 1.0 of the survey contains 8,723 responses that are publicly available. This article details the methodology adopted for the collection, cleaning, and processing of the data. In addition, the data are weighted to be representative of national and regional demographics. This survey dataset can aid researchers, policymakers, businesses, and government agencies in understanding both the extent of behavioral shifts and the likelihood that changes in behaviors will persist after COVID-19.

Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.15141945

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Background & Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has spread across the world, infecting tens of millions and killing over one million people 1 . By March 2021, the United States (U.S.) had recorded the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and COVID-19 related deaths in the world 1 . Since social distancing is one of the most effective measures in containing the spread of the infection 2 , several U.S. states issued various restrictions including stay at home orders. Moreover, numerous restaurants and bars closed for dine-in services, various recreation facilities were shut down, many offices and schools switched from meeting in-person to meeting online, and travel restrictions were imposed. These measures had a profound impact on how people in the U.S. went about their daily lives.

To understand the current and future impacts of the pandemic, we conducted a nationwide online survey. The goal of the survey is to capture attitudes and shifts in travel-related choices of people across the nation both during the pandemic and once COVID-19 is no longer a threat. The data are shared publicly in order to help government agencies and businesses prepare for the future. We are conducting additional survey waves with the same respondents to monitor how people’s choices evolve over the course of the pandemic and beyond.

An early version of the survey took place from April to June 2020, when the stay at home orders were in place in most parts of the country 3 , 4 ; this portion of the data collection is referenced as Wave 1 A . A slightly-modified larger-scale survey, Wave 1B ,was deployed between late June and October 2020. Subsequent survey waves are being conducted as the situation evolves. The collected data are released as they become available and necessary procedures for cleaning, documenting, and weighting the data are completed. This procedures for data processing are detailed in this paper. The present article focuses on data from the first wave of the survey.

In the months following the beginning of the spread of COVID-19, several efforts have been made to collect data related to COVID-19. In fact, many datasets have been compiled, specifically on COVID-19 testing 5 , medical imaging of COVID-19 cases 6 , the timeline of government interventions 7 , policy announcements 8 , implementation and relaxation of public health and social measures 9 , epidemiological data 10 , mobility-related data 11 , and out-of-home activity information 12 , to name a few. Researchers also turned to social media platforms, like Twitter and Instagram, to gather COVID-19-related data 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 . Furthermore, several surveys have been conducted to measure the impacts of the pandemic 17 , 18 , 19 , some of which are now released for public use 20 , 21 .

Our survey data are different from most others in several ways. First, it is comprehensive insofar as it includes data about a wide range of topics including commuting, daily travel, air travel, working from home, online learning, shopping, attitudes, risk perception, and socioeconomic and demographic details. Second, it captures detailed information about behaviors before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the choices that people expect to make when the COVID-19 virus is no longer a threat. Third, it was collected from respondents across the U.S., covering diverse socio-economic backgrounds, professions, education levels, and ages. Fourth, the survey is a true longitudinal panel survey, collecting data in multiple waves from the same individuals at regular intervals. Finally, the data are made publicly available to promote data-driven analysis and research.

The next section describes the data collection methodology, the questions included in the survey, the survey deployment process, and the participant recruitment strategy. Next, the data records section describes the data file types and metadata. Subsequently, the technical validation section explains the procedure for the survey data cleaning and weighting. Lastly, the final section provides additional notes for data users.

Ethical compliance

Our study protocol was approved by both Arizona State University (ASU) and University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Institutional Review Board offices. Participants were informed that their participation is voluntary, and that their responses are shared anonymously. An online informed consent was obtained from everyone who responded to the survey.

Survey questions

The data were collected through an extensive online survey with over 120 questions. The survey questions can be broadly divided into three categories: (1) retrospective questions focusing on the period before COVID-19, (2) questions about the period during COVID-19, and (3) prospective questions on respondent expectations for a future period in which COVID-19 is no longer a threat. The questions cover a wide variety of subjects including commuting habits, discretionary travel choices, work-related questions, study-related questions, shopping, dining, and so on – all before, during, and expected after the pandemic.

The survey questions can be classified into eight categories based on question subject type, namely: demographics, work, study, shopping and dining, transportation, and general attitudes. Table  1 describes each of these categories.

Survey recruitment

From April to mid-June 2020, initial Wave 1A responses were collected from a convenience sample via mailing lists, social media outreach, and mainstream media articles. A total of 1,110 responses were collected during this phase.

From late June onward, Wave 1B, the modified version of the survey, was deployed through survey invitations sent to a random email list purchased from a data marketing company. The list contained 350,000 email addresses belonging to people in 24 metropolitan areas across the U.S., as well as the state of Ohio (see Fig.  1 ). We purchased 100,000 additional email addresses of people randomly selected from across the country, including rural areas and excluding the areas covered by the first 350,000 emails. A total of 1,116 responses were received from the email list. Unfortunately, major email service providers quickly began marking our survey invitations as spam, while some smaller providers did not. While we took several steps to mitigate this issue, including changing the wording of the emails, changing the source of the emails (a uic.edu, asu.edu, or covidfuture.org email address), we were ultimately not able to fully solve this problem and saw a lower response rate from individuals with addresses from major email providers.

Distribution of survey respondents by the state of residence for survey dataset version 1.0. Alaska and Hawai’i are in the same weighting division as California, Oregon, and Washington.

Survey invitation emails were also sent to an additional list of approximately 39,000 email addresses from the Phoenix metropolitan area purchased for a previous survey effort 22 . This list yielded 782 responses. The survey invitation emails were sent using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and through the Qualtrics platform. Every 20 th respondent who was invited through the purchased email addresses received a $10 incentive as a gift card. Respondents also had the option to donate their survey incentive to a charity. Invitees received two reminders as part of efforts to maximize response rates.

An additional 5,250 responses to the Wave 1B survey were collected through a Qualtrics Online Panel. Qualtrics recruits these respondents from a variety of panels maintained by other firms and uses quota sampling to recruit respondents that are demographically representative of the nation. The Qualtrics quotas were set to collect information from 20 U.S. metropolitan areas, mostly consistent with the metropolitan areas sampled from the purchased email list, as well as the states of Ohio, Utah, North Carolina, upstate New York, and rural areas. In order to obtain samples that would represent the population in each of the selected geographies, quotas were imposed in the Qualtrics online panel subsample to guarantee representation based on income, age, race and ethnicity, and education. We requested all respondents to provide their email addresses in order to recontact them for subsequent survey waves. Since the Qualtrics respondents are professional survey takers, we designated most questions as mandatory, and we included attention check questions, which are shown to improve response quality 23 .

The distribution of responses by geography, as well as the targeted metropolitan areas, are shown in Fig.  1 . Figure  2 shows the distribution of responses by recruitment method, available in the “org” variable in the dataset. The geographical targets were chosen based on geographic and metropolitan area size diversity, as well as the state of the virus spread in May 2020.

Distribution of Record by Source (from the survey dataset version 1.0).

Figure  1 shows the distribution of survey respondents across the U.S. (50 states and the District of Columbia). Following our recruitment strategy, a greater number of responses come from larger and more urban states. Arizona is overrepresented due to the oversample of Arizona respondents in the email-based deployment. The respondents from the initial Wave 1A sample are also more likely to hail from Arizona as the Arizona State University survey team’s network is heavily Arizona-based. When the data are weighted, any geographic discrepancies at the census division level are controlled and overrepresentation of Arizona is controlled/corrected separately.

Additional survey waves

To monitor how people’s attitudes and behaviors evolve, survey respondents are contacted again with at least two shorter follow-up surveys, approximately four months apart in spring and fall 2021.

Data Records

The survey dataset 24 can be accessed from the ASU Dataverse at: https://doi.org/10.48349/ASU/QO7BTC . The dataset is available in CSV (comma-separated value) format. Since the data will be updated periodically, the data are versioned—in this article, results from the survey dataset version 1.0 are reported. The dataverse also contains the database codebook containing the metadata and explaining the variables. The codebook contains a changelog for each new version.

The respondents to Waves 1A and 1B received similar but not identical surveys. We have merged the responses to these two versions of the survey into the final dataset wherever possible. For some variables, the questions were identical, whereas for other variables, harmonization of similar responses was required. In the dataset, variables ending in ‘_harm’ are harmonized between the two datasets, variables ending in ‘_w1a’ are available only for Wave 1A respondents, variables ending in ‘_w1b’ are available only for respondents from our Qualtrics Online Panel, purchased email lists, and anyone who found the survey via the COVIDFuture web site or email lists after June 19, 2020 (start date of Wave 1B). Variables with no suffix were asked the same way between the two surveys, and no harmonization was necessary. We also provide a file containing only Wave 1B responses and variables, which simplifies analysis of the Wave 1B data.

Technical Validation

Data cleaning.

To monitor respondents’ attention to survey questions in the Qualtrics online panel, attention check questions were included. Respondents were allowed to miss one attention check and be given an opportunity to answer that section again. If they missed an attention check twice, or both attention checks once, their survey was terminated.

We additionally undertook several quality checks to help ensure that the collected data were valid. We removed any respondents who reported that they shop for groceries both in-store and online every day, or expect to after the pandemic, as these are likely to be invalid responses. We also removed respondents who reported strongly agreeing or strongly disagreeing with all COVID-related attitudes, as some of these were worded positively and some negatively. Several additional quality checks were undertaken in the Qualtrics Online Panel as part of Qualtrics’ data cleaning process, including a check for people finishing the survey too quickly.

Respondents that did not report a state of residence, reported living outside the 50 states and the District of Columbia, or did not provide answers to all of the control variables used in the data weighting process described in the next section were removed from the data. Due to this restriction, 558 records with missing control variable information, 59 records with missing home location, and one response from Puerto Rico were not included in the final dataset encompassing responses received through October 14, 2020. Further steps in data preparation will include imputation of missing data, which will allow for some of these omitted records to be recovered in the next version of the dataset. Among the respondents who were not included in the dataset due to missing control variable information, there are 34 respondents who declared their gender as Other; these respondents could not be included because the Census offers no control marginals to weight these records. Further data weighting procedures will attempt to incorporate non-binary gendered individuals on the dataset. Due to the data cleaning and filtering process applied to responses obtained through October 14, 2020, a total of 618 records were not included in the published dataset.

Data weighting

Because the raw data are not fully representative of the U.S. population, weights were calculated using the following control variables: age, education, gender, Hispanic status, household income, presence of children, and number of household vehicles. The weighting procedure accounts for the true population characteristics at the person level. Household-level variables (i.e., income, presence of children, and number of vehicles) were controlled at the person level as well. For example, the marginal distribution used for presence of children refers to the share of adults aged 18 years and older living in household with children, instead of the share of households that have children as it is usually represented. Those marginal distributions were computed using data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample and the American Community Survey (ACS) 2018 1-year data 25 using the sample 18 and older in each of the weighting region boundaries. A noteworthy consequence of this approach is that adjusted household weights are necessary to evaluate household-level characteristics since individuals from larger households are more likely to be represented in the survey (given there are more individuals in these households), and thus have a higher probability of being selected. Weights for household-level analysis can be computed by dividing the person-level weight (provided in the data) by the number of adults in the household.

The national sample was divided into nine regions based on the reported home state (Table  2 ). Each region’s sample was then weighted to match the distributions observed in ACS 2018 1-year estimates 25 , meaning that the survey is demographically representative at the level of each region as well as the entire U.S. The unweighted and weighted survey results are shown in Table  3 ; the weighted results closely replicate population distributions, with inevitable minor deviations on variables that were not controlled in the weighting process.

Weights were calculated using iterative proportional fitting (IPF) procedures embedded within the synthetic population generator PopGen2.0 26 , 27 , 28 . Univariate marginal control distributions were derived from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample, American Community Survey (ACS) 2018 1-year data 25 .

Usage Notes

Since the survey will be followed by at least two follow-up survey waves, the database will be updated periodically after the data for each wave is collected, cleaned, and weighted. Each version of the data will be uploaded to the ASU Dataverse and assigned a new DOI number, and all previous versions will remain available to promote reproducibility.

The weights were developed to produce a sample that is representative of the U.S. population, as well as representative of nine divisions within the U.S.: eight census regions (with East and West South Central combined due to small samples in these regions), and a separate category for Arizona due to its large number of respondents. The weights are not guaranteed to produce a representative sample for other (smaller) geographies. When evaluating subsamples at a finer geography (e.g., state or metropolitan area), data users should compare marginal distributions of key demographic variables with the census, and re-weight the data if needed to be representative of the area being analyzed.

Some questions differ between Waves 1A and 1B. Therefore, we have weighted the dataset twice: once including all respondents (Waves 1A and 1B), and once excluding respondents to the Wave 1A sample. Data users should use the Wave 1B weights whenever using variables that are not present in the convenience sample. Since Wave 1A data deviates significantly in terms of population representativeness 4 , there are no weights for questions asked only of Wave 1A respondents. In the file with only Wave 1B responses, only Wave 1B weights are presented.

This unique dataset provides insights on attitudes and behaviors not just before and during pandemic, but also on what might be expected after the pandemic. Possible use cases include modeling of during-pandemic and longer-term changes in mode use, air travel, transit ridership, work from home, and traffic congestion (especially for peak period traffic planning). Published uses of this dataset are documented in Capasso da Silva et al . 29 , Chauhan et al . 30 , Mirtich et al . 31 , and Salon et al . 32 .

Code availability

No codes were developed for this research.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) RAPID program under grants no. 2030156 and 2029962 and by the Center for Teaching Old Models New Tricks (TOMNET), a University Transportation Center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation through grant no. 69A3551747116, as well as by the Knowledge Exchange for Resilience at Arizona State University. This COVID-19 Working Group effort was also supported by the NSF-funded Social Science Extreme Events Research (SSEER) network and the CONVERGE facility at the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder (NSF Award #1841338) and the NSF CAREER award under grant no. 155173. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funders.

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R.P., A.M., S.D., D.S. and S.K. planned the project. D.S., M.C., D.C.S., R.C., E.R. and A.M. prepared the survey questions. M.C., D.C.S. and D.S. designed the survey flow logic. R.C., D.C.S., M.C., D.S. and S.D. deployed the survey. M.C. and D.C.S. performed data cleaning and survey data analysis. D.C.S. weighted the dataset. M.C. and D.S. worked on sending out the incentives to the selected respondents. R.C. prepared the first draft. All the authors made significant contributions to manuscript editing and approving the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Rishabh Singh Chauhan .

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Chauhan, R.S., Bhagat-Conway, M.W., Capasso da Silva, D. et al. A database of travel-related behaviors and attitudes before, during, and after COVID-19 in the United States. Sci Data 8 , 245 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-021-01020-8

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The biggest travel trends for 2024

By Sarah Allard

If 2022 was all about a return to travel, then 2023 was the year we went further than ever before. Travellers took to the skies, rails, roads and seas to tick off major bucket-list moments, with Arctic adventures, luxury yacht cruises and even the first tourist trip into space .

In 2024, travellers will be putting what’s important to them front and centre of their plans, valuing deeper experiences that leave a positive impact, time spent with loved ones and wellness moments that last well after checkout. We’ll be choosing destinations carefully, slowing it down to enjoy the silence and the stars, indulging in our love of food in new and interesting places, and immersing ourselves in wellness practices that help us live longer.

These are the 20 travel trends likely to guide how we see the world in 2024.

Astro tourism

1. Astro tourism

What’s the trend? Astronomy, of course, is a field of study that has been around since the dawn of civilisation, and the act of gazing up at the stars has long been a source of soul-soothing wonder. Today, the more society falls deeper into an ever-expanding virtual world, the more we feel a need to broaden our horizons in the real universe. Astro tourism, or star bathing, is the act of travelling with the aim of catching sight of astronomical phenomena – disappearing to lands devoid of any pollution, crowds and traffic, where we can focus solely on the skies above and while away hours gazing at the stars, planets and constellations overhead.

Why will it matter in 2024? Increasingly, wellness-centric hotels and spas are creating the space for guests to gaze upwards, watching for comets, spying constellations and identifying patterns in the glittering expanse. In the UK, Port Lympne has opened the Lookout Bubble, a glass dome allowing guests to sprawl out on king-sized beds and study the stars. Further east on the Arabian Gulf, Zulal Wellness Resort is surrounded by the expanse of the Qatari desert – the ultimate destination for pollution-free astromancy, with dedicated workshops and stargazing sessions for families and children looking to learn more about the cosmos. Safari company Desert & Delta organises trips for travellers looking to soak up the stars across Botswana and Namibia, where guests can sleep in tents at remote locations such as the Makgadikgadi Pans, one of the world’s largest salt flats, and spend nights with uninterrupted star vistas. Similarly, Tswalu is a South African safari camp with star beds set on a sleep-out deck in the Korannaberg mountains. And 2024 happens to be a big year, astronomy-wise, from mind-boggling eclipses to spectacular meteor showers – plus, scientists are predicting the best displays of the northern lights in 20 years, according to the Guardian , as we approach the next solar maximum (the sun’s peak of its 11-year activity cycle). Olivia Morelli

2. Eco diving

What’s the trend? A rise in divers choosing their travel destinations based on the sustainability of the scuba centres, and having a more positive, regenerative impact on the ocean once there.

Why will it matter in 2024? In 2022, UK marine ecology charity The Reef-World Foundation found that 95 per cent of divers wanted to book with sustainable operators, but struggled to do so. In response to this, the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (Padi) launched its Eco Center accreditation on World Earth Day (22 April) 2023, with the United Nations Environment Program and Reef-World itself. The steps required to earn this green status are so rigorous – including sharing evidence of conservation activities and a real reduction in environmental footprint – that Padi advised operators to allow at least 12 months to hit the criteria, taking us to… Earth Day 2024. After an initial figure of just 11 worldwide, there are now 100, and Padi has set a goal to reach 660 by 2030 – a 10th of its membership. “South East Asia currently has the highest density (more than 20), along with the Caribbean ,” says Julie Andersen of Padi. So what does this mean for divers and their trips? “The type of conservation work done and reported on depends on the Eco Center,” Andersen explains. “Those in the Caribbean offer coral replanting programmes, key for regenerating coastlines. In Baja, Mexico , they’ve developed citizen science courses, collecting data for whale conservation.” There are also a number of new Padi courses being launched for any diver to take anywhere, including the Global Shark and Ray Census in August 2024, as well as the relaunch of the Coral Reef Conservation Specialty course before December. Becky Lucas

3. Home swapping

What’s the trend? Increasingly, discerning travellers are looking to stay away for longer stretches, while the rise of remote jobs post-pandemic means that working and living abroad has never been more appealing. The catch? Forking out on hefty accommodation fees while you’re at it. Enter home swapping: the perfect solution to guarantee yourself a (free) home abroad while you offer up your own in exchange – for weeks or even months at a time.

Why will it matter in 2024? As the cost of holidaying continues to climb, home swapping is an affordable alternative to splashing out on expensive hotels or Airbnbs. And while the concepts of couch surfing and house exchanges have existed for decades, several slick new platforms are redefining what home swapping looks like today. Twin City, which operates in cities as far-flung as Lisbon and Los Angeles , has curated a community of 1,100 plus carefully vetted users in just eight months. For an annual subscription fee of £150, members can find Twins to connect with through the platform, and are encouraged to exchange local recommendations for their city as well as their homes, enabling members to feel as if they’re swapping with a trusted friend rather than a stranger. Meanwhile, Kindred, a home-swapping platform where members rack ​​up credits for each night that they exchange homes, raised $15 million in funding this year to expand operations across the USA and Europe, and currently has 10,000 plus homes in more than 50 cities. Members simply pay a cleaning and service fee for each stay, while the cost of the stay itself is free. Or skip out on membership fees entirely and head straight to TikTok, where Gen Z appears to be spearheading the home-swapping movement on social media. Inspired by cult film The Holiday , trending tags #houseswap and #homeswap have garnered more than 23 and 20 million views respectively, with users utilising the platform as a means to advertise their homes, discover like-minded peers to swap with and document their adventures along the way. Gina Jackson

4. Train stations are the new food destinations

What’s the trend? Train stations around the world are usually passed through as quickly as possible, having not been designed for commuters to stay and hang out. Nowadays, as travel delays increase and visitors want more local experiences, it pays for train stations to welcome travellers with shops, restaurants and bars for them to explore. In an effort to create a more dynamic visitor experience, historic train stations are being revamped, with bespoke food and drink offerings as an integral part of the redesign.

Why will it matter in 2024? As train stations are renovated to accommodate more travellers and update old infrastructure, local restaurants and bars are being added to attract more customers. In 2023, the new Moynihan Train Hall in New York City became home to The Irish Exit, a bar from the team behind the acclaimed Dead Rabbit, and Yono Sushi by trendy BondST, plus outposts of beloved NYC restaurants Pastrami Queen and Jacob’s Pickles, with Mexican hotspot La Esquina coming soon.  Platform 1 a new bar and restaurant that opened in November underneath Glasgow Central Station . The cave-like space, with its historic brick arches, serves street-food-style dishes and craft brews made in the on-site microbrewery, plus there’s an outdoor beer garden. As part of its renovation, Toronto’s Union Station launched Union Market in May 2023 with favourite local food retailers Manotas Organics, Chocolatta Brigadeiro’s, Patties Express and Kibo. Meanwhile, in Somerset, Castle Cary station is in the process of a revamp, with nearby hotel The Newt creating a creamery, cafe and co-working space, which is set to open in 2024. Also on tap for the next few years is the completed renovation of 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, with plans for a 20 per cent increase in concession space that will focus on local purveyors. Devorah Lev-Tov

5. Sports tourism

What’s the trend? No longer the domain of lads on tour keen to sink as many pints as possible with one eye on a football game, sports tourism has evolved in the past few years with a new generation – and type – of sports fan emerging thanks to glossy TV documentaries ( Formula 1: Drive to Survive , we’re looking at you). Now, we’re taking our fandom out of the house and following a host of different sports in destinations across the world, planning holidays that hinge around seeing games, races and other activities in exotic locales, and extending trips on either side to see the sights too.

Why will it matter in 2024? A little event known as the Olympic and Paralympic Games anchors the 2024 sports calendar. It kicks off in Paris in late July and runs until early September , during which time more than a million tourists are expected to check in across the French capital. The games have inspired city-wide projects such as the €1.4-billion clean-up of the Seine, which , all going well, will allow public swimming in the river for the first time in a century. Elsewhere, the Tour de France starts in Italy for the first time in 2024, with competitors speeding off in Florence before heading to Rimini on the Adriatic coast and then north to the Apennines through Emilia-Romagna. New bike routes in the area have been released by tour operators such as Ride International Tours and Ride Holidays for cycling enthusiasts keen to join in the fun. Sarah James

6. Coolcationing

What’s the trend? For the vast majority of folk, summer holidays used to be about following the sun, seeking the heat – watching the mercury climb and hitting the sands. With the intense, record-breaking temperatures of recent years, however, many are considering travelling in the opposite direction: booking "coolcations" in temperate destinations, which also benefit from being less crowded.

Why will it matter in 2024? Rising temperatures caused by the climate crisis have resulted in the hottest recorded summer in the UK – just over 40℃ in July 2022 – while 2023, with a sweltering summer in much of Mediterranean Europe, North America and China – is on track to be the hottest year ever. Little wonder that many travellers are thinking again before booking literal hotspots such as the South of France and Sicily in July or August. A survey for luxe travel network Virtuoso found that 82 per cent of its clients are considering destinations with more moderate weather in 2024. Destinations such as Iceland, Finland and Scotland, according to Intrepid Travel, along with Latvia, which is surging in popularity. “We’re seeing an increase in those holidaying further north,” says Andrea Godfrey of Regent Holidays. “Scandinavia and the Baltics are both getting noticed more: they offer a more pared-back style of holiday but have some lovely beaches, and forests and lakes for both relaxation and adventure activities.” Cooler temperatures are particularly well suited to family travel too. “We’re getting far more enquiries from families for destinations that offer summer sun but also respite from the high temperatures being experienced in beach resorts across the Med,” says Liddy Pleasants, founder of family specialist Stubborn Mule Travel. “Kayaking in Norway, with its midnight sun, for instance, and cycling or hiking in Slovenia, which is also very good value.” Time to ditch the SPF50… Rick Jordan

Gig tripping

7. Gig tripping

What’s the trend? For years, athletes and wellness gurus were the big headliners at retreats. But rock stars are, well, the new rock stars of travel. Call it the Swift Effect. Destination concert business is up more than 50 per cent, led mostly by Taylor Swift, says Janel Carnero, a travel advisor at Embark Beyond. In the USA, tickets for Swift’s Eras Tour cost thousands and were still impossible to score. Music fans are realising they can pay less and have a more memorable experience by seeing their favourite pop icons perform in say, Amsterdam or Milan . Tours from performers such as Pearl Jam, U2, Doja Cat and Madonna will anchor trip itineraries, while music festivals (Glastonbury sold out in less than an hour) will be major catalysts for travel.

Why will it matter in 2024? New music festivals, including Untold in Romania's Cluj-Napoca, are introducing travellers to undiscovered destinations, says Alexandrea Padilha of Fischer Travel. And it’s no longer just about the music, says Carnero. “It’s the social aspect of sharing experiences with friends,” she adds. Hotels and travel companies have taken note and are creating the equivalent of backstage VIP experiences for guests. Global adventure collective Eleven has recently introduced Music with Eleven. The programme’s dedicated team of music-industry insiders (including Chris Funk, guitarist from the Decemberists) custom design itineraries that might include sitting in on a recording session at Flóki Studios, just outside the Arctic Circle at Deplar Farm in Iceland. And Rhythm & Sails hosts musicians on its catamarans. The company’s music director, Anders Beck of the jam band Greensky Bluegrass, curates the line-up of artists who perform sessions onboard and in ports as you island hop around the Caribbean . Jen Murphy

8. Resorts will help you biohack your health span

What’s the trend? Longevity is the latest wellness buzzword thanks to best-selling books such as  Outlive  and the hit Netflix documentary  Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones . Between 2021 and 2022, venture-capital investment in longevity clinics more than doubled from $27 million to $57 million globally, according to analysis from longevity research and media company Longevity.Technology. Now, the science of extending life and optimising health has become the focus at hotels. Blue Zones retreats are the new boot camps and even sybaritic resorts are offering the latest biohacks. Poolside vitamin IV anyone?

Why will it matter in 2024? Since the pandemic, feeling good trumps looking good. “People have become aware of the critical importance of developing a more proactive, preventive approach to health on all levels,” says Karina Stewart, co-founder of Kamalaya, a wellness retreat in Koh Samui, Thailand . This means a new willingness to go beyond diet and exercise and embrace sci-fi-sounding bio-regenerative treatments such as ozone therapy and hyperbaric oxygen chambers, both on offer at Kamalaya's new Longevity House. Luxury hotel brands are embracing the trend too. Six Senses Ibiza recently teamed up with biotech company RoseBar to offer guests full diagnostic testing. Maybourne Hotel Group is collaborating with wellness tech pioneer Virtusan to help guests boost performance. And Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea administers treatments such as stem cells and NAD+ (aka the fountain of youth) through its partnership with Next Health longevity centre. At 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay in Kauai, guests are welcomed with a B12 shot instead of bubbles and the resort’s new wellness-specific rooms come with recovery-boosting mod cons including infrared light mats. If the trend continues, the secret to longevity may be as easy as taking more holidays. Jen Murphy

9. Peak season gets the cold shoulder

What's the trend? There’s been a dramatic recent increase in shoulder season travel to Europe’s most popular destinations (particularly France , Spain , the UK and Italy ), which is set to continue in 2024. Luxury travel specialists Original Travel has launched new shoulder season itineraries to locations traditionally in demand during the summer – including the crystalline seascapes of Sardinia and Corsica – after seeing 14 per cent more bookings for September 2023 than for August 2023. Pegi Amarteifio of Small Luxury Hotels of the World shares similar insights. “Comparing phone reservations in 2023 against 2019, we’ve seen a 33 per cent increase for March to May and a 58 per cent increase for September to November , a pattern reflected across our other booking channels too.”

Why will it matter in 2024? A combination of social, economic and environmental factors is driving this trend into 2024. The cost of living crisis means a heightened focus on value. For 62 per cent of respondents to Booking.com’s 2024 travel trends survey, this is a limiting factor for 2024 travel planning, so much so that 47 per cent of respondents are even willing to take children out of school for cheaper off-peak travel. Shoulder season travel is also becoming more attractive due to rising temperatures, and more feasible due to flexible working. Layered on top of these practical considerations is an emotional motivation too: travellers are craving authenticity more than ever, seeking a tranquil, local feel when abroad, rather than Where’s Wally beach scenes. Toyo Odetunde

10. Private group travel

What’s the trend? The post-pandemic desire to gather friends or family and embark on a shared holiday experience shows no sign of abating – in fact, it’s on the increase in luxury travel, as people appreciate the benefits and savour the moment, from 3G family groups to 50-something empty-nesters keen to rekindle life-long friendships. Just don’t take Succession ’s family outing to Tuscany as a role model.

Why will it matter in 2024? “While some predicted group travel would peak post-pandemic, we’ve seen it have a lasting, positive impact with private group bookings continuing to be a dominant trend,” says Tom Marchant of Black Tomato, for whom group travel now accounts for 30 per cent of bookings. The company has just launched its See You in the Moment series to cater for the demand: it uses a mood board of over 35 experiences themed around key flash points, from The Meal (a backcountry feast served on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, for example) to The Challenge (rafting down the Apurímac in Peru, perhaps), all designed to create lasting memories. For Scott Williams, meanwhile, multi-generational travellers are thinking big: why take one house when you can take a whole estate, such as Meli on Paxos in the Greek Islands, which sleeps 17? Other groups are taking to the water, with Red Savannah reporting an increase in bookings for Turkish gulets, Egyptian dahabiyas and Indonesian phinisis. Scott Dunn have seen an increase in bookings amongst groups of friends, with 30 per cent of respondents in a recent survey saying they were planning trips for 2024 that included ski trips to France, adventure travel in South and Central America, and beach breaks on Antigua and Barbados. Empty-nesters are also a growing force, with groups of couples in their 50s to 70s hiring villas in the shoulder season for cultural weeks away, and all-female groups – mainly aged between 50 and 65 – who are proactive in wanting to renew long-term friendships. “We had one repeat group that included several cancer survivors,” says Sarah-Leigh Shenton at Red Savannah. “A hammam afternoon in Turkey was a deeply bonding experience and they’ve since travelled to Jordan and Sicily together.” Rick Jordan

11. AI aims to be your sidekick

What's the trend? Early last year, after OpenAI’s ChatGPT broke the record as the fastest-ever growing consumer app, travellers started playing around with AI chatbots to get inspiration on where they could go. More recently, major travel booking platforms have started to integrate AI chatbots into the booking experience. But if 2023 was the year of AI chatbots wanting to plan your trips , 2024 will be all about how AI aspires to be your travel sidekick. A wave of new AI-powered features and products aims to support travellers on the ground – all while raising concerns around the potential negative impacts as AI becomes more widely integrated with our travels.

Why will it matter in 2024? AI will start to make more real-time interventions in our travels in 2024. One practical example is live translation , which Samsung plans to launch on its 2024 Galaxy devices. Imagine calling somewhere you want to visit to get information without worrying about whether staff speak the same language as you. Another example is greater AI personalisation in popular apps you already use. Uber’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has recently touted the company's increasing use of personalised AI algorithms , which will learn about your habits and make suggestions based on what you’re doing. For the true early adopters, real-time travel interventions could also mean ditching your screen entirely and clipping a screenless personal translator and travel assistant to your chest. This is the unusual idea behind the new talking and projecting AI Pin from Humane , a start-up backed by investors including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, that promises to function a bit like the universal translator from Star Trek . Will anyone want to actually wear the pin or will it go the way of previously hyped devices such as Google Glass? It certainly raises a host of ethical questions about privacy and data protection. Yet the more that AI products successfully help in addressing on-the-go problems, the more travellers will come to rely on them too. JD Shadel

12. Skip-gen travel

What’s the trend? Skip-gen travel describes when grandparents holiday with grandchildren, in other words, "skipping" a generation. “In the past few months, I've had around twice as many enquiries as usual for grandchild/grandchild bookings,” says Clio Wood, founder of family retreat company &Breathe . “There’s been a rising trend of grandparents taking their grandchildren away,” agrees Ollie Summers, Head of Sales at bespoke operator Scott Dunn . “Often to places that have a sentimental meaning to them.”

Why will it matter in 2024? Several travel agencies have created itineraries to cater specifically for this demand in 2024. “Skip-gen safaris are emerging as a micro-trend from the UK, reflecting a niche traveller group now well established in the US luxury market,” says Liane Goldring of Mahlatini Luxury Travel . “The grandparents are usually in their 70s and still active enough to fully embrace a fully guided safari adventure.” Original Travel, meanwhile, has relaunched its Bonding Holidays Collection , featuring trips focussed on discovering something new together, such as its 14-day Family Ranching itinerary in the American West. Some of this growth can be attributed to big-ticket lockdown promises coming to fruition. Now, amid the UK’s cost of living crisis, parents are also keen to make the most of the time and childcare support of their typically baby boomer, more comfortably retired parents. Plus, the global ratio of living grandparents to grandchildren is higher than ever, thanks to a combined increase in life expectancy and drop in the number of children per person. We’re even said to be living in the "the age of the grandparent". Don’t expect this trend – or your grandparents – to slow down anytime soon. Becky Lucas

Glamorous train travel

13. Train travel gets glam

What’s the trend? Rising climate consciousness has fuelled a rail travel revival, the luxury train niche is reaching new heights of popularity, extravagance and ambition. Travel booking platforms are reporting growing demand for luxury rail trips , where the journey is, yes, the destination. In fact, new design-forward train lines increasingly rival the finest hotels for the culinary experiences and bells and whistles on offer.

Why will it matter in 2024? A new wave of rail lines and itineraries launching in 2024 puts an emphasis on deeper immersion into the culture and landscapes of the destinations, which are more and more off the beaten track. Responding to growing demand for luxury train travel among its user base, specialist platform Railbookers plans to launch arguably the most geographically extensive and expensive luxury train itinerary around. With prices per person starting at $113,599, the 80-day Around the World by Luxury Train voyage will cross four continents and 13 countries. Beginning in August , the slow journey will string together existing luxury rail trips including Canada’s Rocky Mountaineer from Vancouver to Jasper and India’s Maharajas Express from Delhi to Mumbai. In Asia, the previously paused Eastern & Oriental Express is making a grand comeback starting in February, with carriages getting an upscale revamp and its legendary route being retraced through Malaysia's landscapes. Meanwhile, Japan is a hot destination for its scenic train journeys such as the exclusive Train Suite Shiki-shima , which quickly closed applications for its 2024 trips due to demand. And in Europe, six new train lines will commence or terminate in Rome under Accor's La Dolce Vita umbrella, with suites designed by starchitects Dimorestudio, building on the cultural legacy of the famous Orient Express . JD Shadel

14. Restaurateur-owned hotels

What’s the trend? Restaurants and hotels are the two linchpins of the hospitality industry. And naturally, the two are often intertwined on one premises. Until recently, though, most hotels weren’t started or owned by restaurateurs. Yet as food-focused travel keeps increasing, with people hankering for the next hot reservation and planning entire trips around discovering a culture through its food, it makes sense that restaurateurs are adding hotelier to their CVs – and ensuring their new properties have impressive food offerings. We’d be remiss not to mention Nobu, which began as a restaurant in 1994 and in 2013 launched its global hotel brand, as a harbinger of the trend.

Why will it matter in 2024? Just as design brands (RH, West Elm) have opened hotels in recent years, now restaurateurs are getting in on the action. In the USA, restaurateur and 12-time James Beard award nominee Sam Fox has just launched the Global Ambassador in Phoenix, Arizona, with five restaurants. Santa Barbara’s Good Lion Hospitality is relaunching Petit Soleil , a Californian wine country boutique hotel, with a new bar and restaurant slated for next spring. The Lafayette Hotel & Club was debuted last summer in San Diego by Arsalun Tafazoli, founder of a local hospitality group that operates 16 bars and restaurants. The hotel has five restaurants and bars, with two more opening by the end of the year. In Dallas, Harwood International, which owns a dozen or so restaurants in the area, opened Hôtel Swexan in June. In the St Gallen region of Switzerland two hotels were recently added to beloved restaurants: the revamped Mammertsberg  and  Gasthaus Traube . In Slovenia, AS Hotel is a new place to stay launched Sebastjan Raspopović, son of chef Svetozar Raspopović-Pope of renowned restaurant Gostilna AS in Lublijana. Aside from a restaurant by Raspopović-Pope, the hotel has an eatery by Michelin-lauded chef Ana Roš. Finally,  R48 , and its lauded Chef’s Table, was opened in Tel Aviv last spring by R2M Hospitality Group, which also runs restaurants CoffeeBar and Herzl 16. Devorah Lev-Tov

15. Silent travel

What’s the trend? In an age of overstimulation, silence might be just what we need from our travels in 2024. Offering a chance to restore and reset, silent travel represents a more mindful kind of trip, one that doesn’t leave you needing a holiday to recover from your holiday. Silent meditation retreats are an increasingly popular wellness trend, but silent travel also encompasses secluded nature resorts, sleep retreats , quiet hotels , silent walking tours and even silent disco and concert experiences.

Why will it matter in 2024? Saturated with stress and screen time, many of us are looking for ways to disconnect. The silent walking trend that recently took TikTok by storm reflects a growing impulse to escape the noise of our tech-fuelled lives and embrace the quiet, with promising implications for wellbeing. One 2015 study suggests silence may help to stimulate brain development, while another found that two minutes of silence during or after relaxing music increased the music's calming effects. With the Global Wellness Institute forecasting a 21 per cent increase in wellness tourism in the next two years, what better counter to the chaos of our always-on lives than silence? Silent travel is also part of a move towards more sustainable tourism. Quiet Parks International , for example, offers unique nature experiences in dedicated quiet spaces, reducing noise pollution for the surrounding wildlife. Silent travel opportunities abound in 2024. Kick off the year with a silent retreat in Portugal (with Innate ) or Italy (with Mandali ). More adventurous silent-seekers can trek the peaceful Japanese Kumano Kodo trail, or explore Finland’s Arctic landscape with a Silence & Nature Tour . For a tailor-made silent experience, Black Tomato’s Blink camp offers luxury accommodation in the world’s most remote settings, while its Get Lost programme promises to help you find yourself by getting lost in a far-flung location. Tasha Kleeman

16. Urban gardens

What’s the trend? Never mind the biophilic office and those pot plants you forget to water: whole cities are going green as architects and planners create leafy microclimates amid the grey concrete to help keep us cooler, connect communities and even feed us.

Why will it matter in 2024? Having trees and gardens in our cities is a pretty good idea. King Nebuchadnezzar certainly thought so, which is why his Hanging Gardens of Babylon made it into travel’s first-ever bucket list – the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – back in the 2nd century BC. Nowadays planting trees creates much-needed shade, stores carbon and increases biodiversity, but it also makes our cityscapes so much nicer. While Valencia, an early adopter of urban greening with its 12km-long Turia Garden in 1986, is the 2024 European Green Capital, France is busy planting trees like there’s no tomorrow: go to Paris for the 2024 Olympics and you’ll spot budding new forests growing in Place du Colonel-Fabien, Place de Catalogne and in the Charonne district, while Bordeaux’s Grandeur Nature project includes urban cooling islands, micro-forests and rain gardens. All of which will doubtless be discussed at the ISHS Green Cities 2024 symposium, hosted by RHS Garden Wisley in Surrey, England, in September. Meanwhile, on Cyprus – an island that experienced temperatures of 44℃ in 2023 – the new Salina Park opens in time for summer shade in the seaside city of Larnaca. In Brazil, Rio’s Hortas Cariocas is a groundbreaking achievement that will be completed by the end of 2024: the largest urban vegetable garden in the world, connecting 56 community gardens across favelas and schools. And in London, the £1-billion Google building in King’s Cross will show just what can be done with one structure. Designed by Thomas Heatherwick, the "landscraper" – only 11 storeys high but stretching out longer than the Shard is tall – is hoped to provide a blueprint for future urban projects: running along the rooftop is a multi-level garden, with wildflowers, lawns and decked seating areas, set with more than 55,000 plants and 250 trees. Can you dig it? Rick Jordan

17. Back-of-house tours

What’s the trend? Greener hotels giving us a look behind the scenes to show us – not just tell us – they're sustainable. We don't mean a look-see at solar panels or composting, but heart-lifting experiential tours that help us appreciate why it matters to support socio-economic uplift through tourism. In South America, Blue Apple Beach invites visitors to get up close and personal with the community work it does in Colombia through its impact fund. Founder Portia Hart wanted more than token-gesture carbon offsetting, where locals themselves could decide how money was spent. In Africa, guests of the Bushcamp Company contribute to initiatives through the Luangwa Conservation and Community Fund. A popular excursion in Zambia is visiting the boreholes that are installed with outreach funds. Each pump provides fresh drinking water to hundreds of people a day, and visitors who spend time with those gathered get a very tangible insight into how such provisions funded by hospitality can literally change lives in regions most affected by a warming planet.

Why will it matter in 2024? Transparency is on the up as the European Union's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive comes into force and greenwashing is coming close to being officially outlawed. A year of droughts, floods and heatwaves also reminds us we need to make better-informed choices in our travel planning – and all the better if we can also get a crash course in the science and sociology of positive impact. Experiences that go beyond explaining responsible practices, but demonstrate a deep respect for communities on the climate-change frontlines and help make their challenges relatable to visitors are especially helpful. Juliet Kinsman

18. Wild feasting

What’s the trend? Have you ever noticed how food always tastes better outdoors? But in today’s modern world many of us are more used to eating a sandwich while staring at a screen. Wild feasting describes the trend for beautifully curated culinary experiences in natural environments with the incorporation of hyper-local and foraged ingredients. In Sweden, for example, you can tap into a network of do-it-yourself outdoor restaurants where you book a table in a scenic location, search for nettles, birch leaves, lingonberries and trumpet chanterelles, and then cook them on an open fire according to a recipe card provided by a Michelin-grade chef.

Why will it matter in 2024? A greater range of wild feasting opportunities will give urbanites a chance to properly connect over food. Leading the way is Noah Ellis, founder of the UK's Nomadic Dinners. “Since launching in 2018, we experienced compounded year-on-year growth for our feasting and foraging experiences,” he says. In 2024 he will be hosting a new series of fire feasts, including one set among the bluebells. Also tapping into the zeitgeist is TikTok star Alexis Nikole Nelson (aka the Black Forager) who will publish a book about wild food in 2024. And don’t forget, 2024 is the last year you will be able to eat at Copenhagen ’s legendary, foraging-focused restaurant Noma before it turns into a test kitchen and closes to the public. Another innovator is Holmen Lofoten’s Kitchen On The Edge Of The World series in the Norwegian Arctic Circle, where guests can participate in four nights of wild feasts cooked by top chefs. In 2024, these will include Lennox Hastie, José Pizarro and Heidi Bjerkan. Ingunn Rasmussen, owner of Holmen Lofoten, says: “Now, as when we were little kids, gathering around a bonfire in the wilderness, sharing stories, feasting under the stars in these magical, remote surroundings is one of the absolute highlights, both for our guests and for us.” Jenny Southan

19. Plan-free travel

What's the trend? Saying no to endless scrolling to plan every inch of a trip, and saying yes to spontaneity instead. The power of the algorithm-spawned era of Fomo travel is waning, with those once secret spots made Insta-famous becoming tired and cookie-cutter, and the drive to plan a trip around them losing momentum. The rising counter movement is travel with no plans at all.

Why will it matter in 2024? The plan-free appeal is going one step further in 2024. Booking.com recently reported that 50 per cent of UK travellers want to book a surprise trip in 2024, where everything, even the destination, is unknown until arrival. And it’s possible to do it via travel companies such as Black Tomato, whose Get Lost service offers customers the ability to simply select a preferred environment – polar, jungle, desert, mountain or coastal – and leave its team decide everything else. “While we launched Get Lost several years ago, post-pandemic we’ve seen a notable and rising uptick in bookings and enquiries,” says Black Tomato co-founder Tom Marchant. Journee offers a similar surprise element, with travellers only finding out where they’re going at the airport. The service, which includes a full itinerary and access to a team via Whatsapp, is particularly popular with solo female travellers, while overall demand has grown so much that the London -based brand recently launched trips in the USA. Lauren Burvill

20. Frontier tourism

What’s the trend? To go above and beyond. Or below and under. As crossings of the tumultuous Drake Passage to Antarctica rack up millions of TikTok views and traffic jams form on Everest, canny travellers are seeking more individual, less obvious experiences that combine thrill-seeking with more meaningful self-empowerment.

Why will it matter in 2024? One person’s frontier is another’s backyard, of course, so frontiers are entirely subjective here. For some, this could mean being the first to camp under the stars in a remote landscape, or hike an ancient pilgrimage trail that’s been off the map for centuries. It’s still possible to bag a rare place on a Kamba African Rainforest Experience in the Republic of the Congo, being one of just 12 people to explore a game park the size of Belgium. Black Tomato, meanwhile, is designing an intrepid new expedition to the remote Mitre Peninsula in Argentina, along with a trip in Peru navigating the Sacred Valley of the Incas by raft. “This sort of adventure goes beyond bragging rights and is more akin to self-empowerment and the gratification of pushing our own horizons,” says Black Tomato co-founder Tom Marchant. The Ultimate Travel Company is also heading to Peru, a country repositioning itself for luxury travellers, with stays at Puqio, its first tented exploration camp,, in the remote Colca Valley in the Southern Peruvian Andes. Wilderness camping is also pegging out fresh terrain in Kyrgyzstan, with yurt stays on the steppes trending for 2024, according to Wild Frontiers, as is Mongolia ; while Albania, Mongolia, Pakistan and the Empty Quarter of Oman are all on the radar for an increasing number of travellers. And while the space-age pods of White Desert have already sold out for New Year’s Eve 2024 and 2025, latter-day frontiersfolk can take the path less travelled and explore the frozen continent’s southern coast (99 per cent of visitors go from South America to the northwest) with The Ultimate Travel Company’s new Ross Sea cruises, seeing the Ross Ice Shelf and Transantarctic Mountains. Don’t forget to pack your penknife. Rick Jordan

• Stand Up for Free Enterprise

The State of the Travel Industry in 2023: Current Trends and Future Outlook

Kentucky chamber ceo: we must protect the free enterprise system, how franchising can help fuel the american dream, microsoft president: responsible ai development can drive innovation, suzanne clark's 2024 state of american business remarks, rhythms of success: the free enterprise tune of a small business.

January 12, 2023

Featured Guest

Tony Capuano CEO, Marriott International, Inc.

Chip Rogers President & CEO, American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA)

As COVID-19 restrictions have continued to ease, the travel and hospitality industries have seen a resurgence in customers. Companies like Marriott have seen percentage increases in revenue and rate, even topping pre-pandemic levels.

During the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 2023 State of American Business event, Chip Rogers, President and CEO of the American Hotel and Lodging Association , and Tony Capuano, CEO of Marriott International, Inc. , sat down for a fireside chat. Read on for their insights on the post-COVID state of the travel industry, a shifting customer base, and the outlook for 2023 and beyond.

2022 Demonstrated the Power and Resilience of Travel

After declines amid the pandemic, 2022 brought about a positive recovery for the travel industry.

“[2022] reminded us of the power and resilience of travel,” said Capuano. “If you look at the forward bookings through the holiday season, [you’ll see] really strong and compelling numbers … so we’re really encouraged.”

“The only caveat I would give you about that optimism is, as you know, the booking windows are much shorter than we’ve seen them in a pre-pandemic world,” he added. “So those trends can change more quickly than we’re accustomed to."

The ‘Regular’ Customer Segments Are Shifting

At the start of pandemic recovery, industry leaders believed leisure travel would lead travel recovery, with business travel closely behind and group travel at a distant third, according to Capuano. While some of those predictions have held, others have shifted.

“Leisure [travel] continues to be exceedingly strong, and group [travel] has surprised to the upside,” he explained. “Business travel is perhaps the tortoise in this ‘Tortoise and the Hare,’ slow-and-steady recovery.”

However, Capuano noted customer segments are becoming less and less strictly defined.

“[There’s] this trend we've seen emerge over the pandemic of blended trip purpose … [where] more and more folks are combining leisure and business travel,” he said. “If this has staying power, I think it’s absolutely a game changer, as we get back to normal business travel and hopefully maintain that leisure travel.”

To accommodate this shifting demand, Marriott has focused on expanding offerings to accommodate both the business and leisure sides of travelers’ trips.

“[We’ve had] a very big focus on [expanding bandwidth], so that if [we’ve] got 300 rooms full of guests on Zoom calls simultaneously, we’ve got the bandwidth to cover it,” Capuano added. “[We’re also] being more thoughtful about fitness, leisure, and food and beverage offerings — and having the flexibility to pivot those offerings as somebody sheds their business suit on Thursday and changes into shorts and flip flops for the weekend.”

2023 Offers Hope for Continued Growth in the Travel and Hospitality Sectors

As the travel and hospitality sectors continue to grow and shift in the post-pandemic era, Capuano shared reasons for optimism in 2023.

“Number one, it's our people,” he emphasized. “When you see their passion, their enthusiasm, their resilience, their creativity, and just how joyful they are to have their hotels full again … it's hard not to be filled with optimism.”

“If you look at how far the industry has come over the last few years,” Capuano continued, “any lingering doubts folks may have had about the resilience of travel — and about the passion that the general public has to explore cities and countries — it's hard not to be excited about the future of our industry.”

• Post-Pandemic Work

From the Series

State of American Business

View this online

Travel industry recovery: Business or leisure?

Research report.

• In a post-pandemic market, travel companies need to create and capture demand for leisure travel. We have identified 6 key ways for them to do this.
• In the short-term the travel industry will be characterized by a new kind of travel customer whose expectations and preferences will drive demand.
• The travel market’s recovery is largely dependent on the speed of the global vaccine rollout and it will return, primarily, as a leisure market.
• Travel companies need to reposition themselves for the post-pandemic market by activating a new strategy based on leisure travel.

T he whole travel industry is grappling with the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Travel priorities have changed radically for both leisure and business customers—with dramatic consequences for airlines and hospitality businesses.

An end to the pandemic may be on the horizon. But will the travel industry ever look the same again?

Many believe the Summer of 2021 will be a strong boost to recovery. However, business travel—the staple of the global travel industry —is likely to recover much more slowly. To survive the next few years, airlines and hoteliers must adapt quickly to capture the opportunities in this new industry landscape.

The imperatives? To refocus the strategy around leisure travel.

How to capture leisure demand

We’ve identified the six key areas that travel companies need to focus on to create and capture demand for leisure travel.

New post-pandemic travel trends

The pandemic fundamentally changed the priorities, values and behavior of travelers —whether by necessity or choice. Unsurprisingly, the emphasis is now on traveling as safely and healthily as possible. But consumers are also much more aware of the environmental and societal impact of their travel choices, building on a trend that predates the pandemic. There are four key areas of change:

Integrated personal wellness

Health and wellbeing are now priorities for travelers. Every business now has to be a wellness business.

Living for local

The pandemic has refocused people’s attention on their local communities. Domestic travel will be a priority for leisure travelers in the short term.

Doing real good

Travelers in the post-COVID era are looking for sustainable experiences that blend their own need for wellness with that of the planet.

Reinventing connection

Whilst people have been connecting virtually throughout the pandemic, there’s no substitute for seeing loved ones face to face.

New travel market challenges

What do the next twelve months hold for airlines and hospitality businesses? So much depends on the speed of the global COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Amazing progress is being made in some countries, while others are lagging.

In addition, the profile of demand has changed fundamentally—and in some ways permanently—as companies around the world realize much of their business can be done remotely. The need to travel and stay overnight for a face-to-face meeting will likely be much lower. So the travel market is now, in effect, a leisure market. And that’s a structurally smaller market than airlines and hotel companies have been used to operating in.

This structural shift changes how those companies need to go about attracting, converting and retaining customers. It also means they need to think creatively about what to do with underutilized assets.

The travel business is now a leisure business…and a smaller business.

A new playbook for the leisure travel market

So, how should airlines and hotels reposition themselves for the post-pandemic market? First and foremost, they must refocus on creating and capturing demand for leisure travel.

This creates six new areas of focus for travel companies:

Inspiring customers

Airlines and hotels must inspire potential customers and trigger a desire to travel by being active on social media and travel inspiration channels.

A “Glocal” marketing strategy

A global marketing strategy is an essential part of brand awareness, but for leisure travel, it needs to be complemented with local flexibility.

Rethinking loyalty

Points-based loyalty programs focused on frequent business travel need to be rebalanced around the functional and emotional side of loyalty.

Scalable media and content models

To capture new business, companies need a continuous personalized connection with travelers, across all channels and throughout the marketing funnel.

Data-driven decisions

Data unlocks the leisure opportunity by uncovering local needs, guiding the value proposition, increasing efficiency, and prioritizing investments.

Delivering seamless experiences

Ultimately, the experience must match up to the promise. Get it right and there are huge opportunities to increase brand affinity and loyalty.

Break the mold on travel loyalty programs

Activating the leisure strategy.

Here are some key steps travel companies can take to activate a new strategy focused on leisure travelers, both right now and over the medium term:

A new chapter for post-pandemic travel

There’s no doubt the travel industry is going through a seismic shift. Revenues from traditional business models built around business travel have disappeared overnight. Those revenues will not return immediately. Indeed, they may never recover to pre-pandemic levels. The leisure travel industry is the travel industry for the time being.

That’s why it’s essential that airlines and travel companies take action now. The risk of delay is high. But the opportunities for those that can adapt quickly are huge. This is the time to refocus on leisure, not business, and find new growth in the post-pandemic travel industry .

RELATED: U.S. millennials plan to spend more on luxury travel in 2021, new research from Tripadvisor reveals .

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Back to the future? Airline sector poised for change post-COVID-19

It’s difficult to overstate just how much the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated airlines. In 2020, industry revenues totaled $328 billion, around 40 percent of the previous year’s. In nominal terms, that’s the same as in 2000. The sector is expected to be smaller for years to come; we project traffic won’t return to 2019 levels before 2024.

Financial woes aside, the pandemic’s longer-term effects on aviation are emerging. Some of these are obvious: hygiene and safety standards will be more stringent, and digitalization will continue to transform the travel experience. Mobile apps will be used to store travelers’ vaccine certificates and COVID-19 test results.

Other effects, though, are more profound. Unlike the 2008 global financial crisis, which was purely economic and weakened spending power, COVID-19 has changed consumer behavior—and the airline sector—irrevocably.

This article will explore five fundamental shifts in the aviation industry that have arisen from the pandemic. For each of these shifts, we also issue a call to action. By responding to these shifts decisively now, carriers should be able to look beyond the pandemic and adapt to the long-term realities of COVID-19.

1. Leisure trips will fuel the recovery

Business travel will take longer to recover, and even then, we estimate it will only likely recover to around 80 percent of prepandemic levels by 2024. Remote work  and other flexible working arrangements are likely to remain in some form postpandemic and people will take fewer corporate trips.

In previous crises, leisure trips or visits to friends and relatives tended to rebound first, as was the case in the United Kingdom following 9/11 and the global financial crisis (Exhibit 1). Not only did business trips take four years to return to precrisis levels after the attacks on the World Trade Center but they also had not yet recovered to pre-financial-crisis levels when COVID-19 broke out in 2020. Therefore, we expect that as the pandemic subsides, the rise in leisure trips will outpace the recovery of business travel.

Some carriers are highly dependent on business travelers—both those traveling in business class and those who book economy-class seats right before they need to travel. While leisure passengers fill up most of the seats on flights and help cover a portion of fixed costs, their overall financial contributions in net marginal terms are negligible, if not negative. Most of the profits earned on a long-haul flight are generated by a small group of high-yielding passengers, often traveling for business. But this pool of profit-generating passengers has shrunk because of the pandemic.

A McKinsey Live event on 'Returning to corporate travel: How do we get it right?'

The call: Revisit flight economics

Airlines should reevaluate the economics of their operations, especially long-haul flights. First, a smaller contribution from business traffic could necessitate a different pricing logic. For example, today most carriers price point-to-point nonstop flights at a premium. Travelers who value time over price—mostly business travelers—book these nonstop flights. Leisure travelers, even those traveling in premium classes, are more price sensitive and may choose an indirect routing. This large gap between nonstop pricing and connect pricing may need to narrow.

Second, lower business traffic may require network changes. Airlines added many flights over the past few years between hubs and smaller cities, using small-size widebodies such as the Boeing 787. These flights work because of the high-yielding business demand. With business demand subdued, economics favor larger aircraft flying less frequently. Airlines may find that larger aircraft such as Airbus A350s or Boeing 777s—which have lower unit costs—become the base of the long-haul network.

Third, airlines may also look at reconfiguring the layout of their cabins to address the increased share of leisure traffic. At the simplest level, lower business-class demand may warrant smaller business-class cabins. Taking this further, products may shift to better cater to premium-leisure passengers, such as growth of premium-economy cabins or development of business-class seats more suitable for traveling as couples or groups.

2. Staggering debt levels will lead to ticket price increases and a larger role for government in the sector

Many airlines have had to borrow huge sums of money to stay afloat and cope with high daily cash burn rates. Tapping into state-provided aid, credit lines, and bond issuances, the industry collectively amassed more than $180 billion worth of debt in 2020, 1 “COVID-19 lowers airline credit ratings and raises the cost of debt,” International Air Transport Association, August 21, 2020, iata.org. a figure equivalent to more than half of total annual revenues that year. And debt levels are still rising (Exhibit 2). Repaying these loans is made even harder by worsening credit ratings and higher financing costs.

These costs will need to be recouped. Therefore, we’ll likely see ticket prices rise. By our estimates, this could amount to a rise in ticket prices of about 3 percent, assuming a ten-year repayment window for only the additional debt taken on.

Furthermore, when demand for air travel returns, it will likely outpace supply initially. We see a glut of latent demand of people eager to travel. It will take time for airlines to restore capacity, and bottlenecks such as delays in bringing aircraft back to service and crew retraining could lead to a supply–demand gap, resulting in higher short-term prices.

In many cases, airline rescue efforts come in the form of government bailouts—with strings attached. We’re seeing a reemergence of, or increase in, the level of state ownership and influence. In Europe alone, TAP Air Portugal, Lufthansa Group, and Air Baltic all received state aid combined with an increase or reintroduction of government shareholdings.

The call: Be a constructive collaborator

As the state becomes a more active player—whether as a creditor, a direct shareholder, or as part of the board—airlines will find themselves having to deal more closely with the authorities. Instead of seeing this as a necessary restriction to access much-needed funds, airlines can treat it as an opportunity to shape how the sector evolves with a key stakeholder.

Airlines can work with regulators to set standards across a gamut of issues. These could include committing to reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions in return for more labor flexibility; increasing the cash-on-hand requirements to make airlines more resilient against future shocks; more balanced value sharing between airlines and other sectors such as airports; or changes in the ownership caps to allow greater inflows of foreign capital, reducing the reliance on state capital further down the road.

3. We will see a greater disparity of performance among airlines in the future

Some airlines have responded to the pandemic by restructuring for greater efficiency; others are merely muddling through. Occasionally, this is linked to state-aid programs, which may reduce the incentive for much-needed measures such as cost, organizational, and operational restructuring. Airlines that are not proactively transforming risk failing to set the business up for longer-term structural value creation.

As such, we’re seeing some airlines pull ahead. Before COVID-19, an airline boasted an ROIC well ahead of the overall industry’s rate of 5.8 percent. Not only did its stronger position pre-COVID-19 enable it to navigate the crisis thus far without taking on government loans of the scale relative to other airlines, it also made it possible for it to restructure to emerge with an even more competitive cost base.

Another group of carriers that have an opportunity to transform their business are airlines that have access to a restructuring process, such as Chapter 11 in the United States. These carriers can renegotiate midlife leases, shed excess debt, and emerge leaner. They will be fierce competitors going forward.

The call: Aim higher when it comes to IT and digital investment

Becoming better can necessitate investment. Even though many airlines find themselves in financial straits, we recommend investing more in IT and digitalization, not less. Before the pandemic, airlines spent roughly 5 percent of their revenue on IT. This is relatively low compared with other sectors. By means of comparison, the retail industry spends around 6 percent on average, and financial services 10 percent.

Airlines could consider stepping up IT and automation investment now. For example, airlines can respond to the quicker recovery of domestic and short-haul flights by investing in direct sales and owning the customer relationship. Relationships with IT and distribution providers could be reexplored. Carriers can also invest in the customer experience—such as making check-in and boarding processes more seamless—and support services—from revenue accounting to invoicing—to drive the next level of efficiency. Beyond this, the next horizon is analytics, which involves, among other efforts, using data  in smarter ways to enhance decision making, requiring some investment but yielding significant payoffs .

4. Aircraft markets may be oversupplied for some time to come

In the years before COVID-19, aircraft OEMs ramped up production in the anticipation of continued growth. This has led to a glut in aircraft availability. Furthermore, some carriers have returned relatively new aircraft to lessors, such as Norwegian Air Shuttle when it exited the long-haul market. Prices for used-aircraft leases have plummeted and are likely to remain lower. For instance, the monthly lease rate of a 2016 vintage Boeing 777-300ER aircraft was around $1.2 million in 2019. In 2020, the rate fell to less than $800,000. New aircraft are rumored to be available at even deeper discounts.

The call: Act countercyclically now, if you can

If finances permit, carriers can consider acting countercyclically: locking in orders for new aircraft or confirming operating leases now when demand is low. Aircraft are a significant expense for an airline, making up 10 to 15 percent of a carrier’s cost base. As lease rates and OEM pricing fluctuate with supply and demand levels, inking deals during a crisis could allow carriers to enjoy a cost advantage for years to come.

5. Air freight will see undersupply for some time

Over the past ten years, low cargo rates and the unprofitability of the cargo business have led many airlines to relinquish or scale back their dedicated cargo freighter fleets. However, cargo has been a lifeline for the aviation industry during COVID-19. Before the pandemic, cargo typically made up around 12 percent of the sector’s total revenue; that percentage tripled last year. Based on data from the Airline Analyst, only 21 (down from 77 in 2019) of the airlines around the world that disclosed their operating performance achieved positive operating profits for the third quarter of 2020, traditionally the industry’s most profitable quarter. Among these 21 airlines, cargo revenue accounted for 49 percent of total revenues on average.

During the pandemic, e-commerce sales soared while many passenger flights—which are responsible for delivering around half of total air cargo—were grounded. As a result, cargo yields increased by about 30 percent last year. As commercial flights gradually return, belly supply will increase, although not to pre-COVID-19 levels for at least a few years, as the industry is expected stay smaller than before the pandemic for several years.

The call: Bring back freighters, carefully

In response to the high demand and low supply of air freight right now, carriers could investigate short- to medium-term opportunities to boost their cargo services. Airlines can enhance their flexibility through measures such as increasing the deployment of so-called preighters, or passenger airplanes that are used to transport cargo. Airlines may look at freighter conversions, especially as their passenger fleets reduce in number.

Airlines need to be agile. Rushing headlong into developing and maintaining a large freighter fleet again comes with risk. Airlines need to grow cargo in an agile way that allows for quick adjustments; pursuing such a play should be seen as part of a wider theme of establishing a more flexible production setup. High fixed costs combined with unpredictable demand levels outside an airline’s control increase the need for airlines to be able to scale down supply nimbly.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. There is some relief to be found in various parts of the world now that vaccinations have begun, but the road to recovery for air traffic will take several years. The shape of the post-COVID-19 airline sector is becoming clearer and holds lessons for airlines today. Multiple longer-running trends have been accelerated, such as digitization and the phasing out of less efficient aircraft. Burdened by debt, many carriers have depleted their cash reserves. But the forecast is not without bright spots. Travel will become greener and more efficient, and people are itching to travel again for holidays. Taking steps now will help airlines thrive in this transformed sector.

Jaap Bouwer is a senior expert in McKinsey’s Amsterdam office, Steve Saxon is a partner in the Shenzhen office, and Nina Wittkamp is a partner in the Munich office.

The authors wish to thank Alex Dichter and Vik Krishnan for their contributions to this article.

This article was edited by Jason Li, a senior editor in the Shanghai office.

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Summer travel trends 2024: More crowds and expensive airfare, hotels

Travel troubleshooter.

Summer travel in 2024 will be “expensive in every way,” says Katharine Nohr. And she should know.

She’s planning a two-week adventure to Europe in June, which starts with a marathon flight from Honolulu to Zurich, where she’ll speak at a conference. Then she’s hopscotching across Europe — to Vienna, then on to the Olympics. She’s made plans to be in Nantes, France, to watch a soccer game, Lille for basketball and Paris for gymnastics, boxing and swimming.

All told, it’ll set her back five figures despite her best efforts, which include flying economy class and staying in the lowest-priced hotels. 

“The trip is pricey, even with my efforts to economize,” says Nohr, an attorney from Honolulu. “But it’s a once-in-my-life adventure.” 

Summer travelers are pursuing exciting, expensive vacations

Nohr is part of a wave of travelers making big plans for this summer. The itineraries are exciting — and expensive. 

Pretty much every barometer of travel intent is up for the summer travel season. Inflation and unemployment are low, and consumer sentiment and curiosity are high, fueling an unprecedented interest in travel during the summer of 2024. 

“Bookings are rising,” says Susan Sherren, who runs Couture Trips , a travel agency. “Unfortunately, hotel, tour and air prices are not falling. So, if you plan on hitting the road this summer, make sure you are willing to splash some cash.”

Travel companies say they’re overwhelmed with summer reservations.

“The travel economy is booming,” says Joe Ialacci, owner of Yacht Hampton Boating Club , a company that rents yachts in Sag Harbor, N.Y. He’s seeing a 40% increase in rentals this summer compared to last year as Americans shift some of their vacation dollars to domestic destinations.

Prices aren’t the only thing trending higher. People’s expectations for their summer vacation are also higher than at any time since the pandemic, says Sangeeta Sadarangani, CEO of Crossing , a multinational travel agency headquartered in London. 

“They’re embracing the unknown,” she says.

And one of the great unknowns is travel prices. How much higher will they be?

What will prices be like this summer?

It depends on where you’re going. There’s good news if you’re traveling within the U.S.: Flights and hotels are a little less expensive than last summer. But they’re rising elsewhere. Here’s the breakdown:

• Airfares are mixed. Domestic round-trip airfares for summer are averaging $325 per ticket, which is down 5% from last year, according to the travel platform Hopper. Flights to Europe are cheaper, too. They’ve fallen 12% from last year to $1,012. But flights to South America are up 4% and flights to Canada have risen 5%. You’ll pay an average of $759 to fly south of the border and $430 to head north.
• U.S. hotel rates are down. Domestically, they’re down 7% to an average of $304 per night. Internationally, they’re up 2% to $314 per night, according to Kayak.
• Car rental prices are rising. Average domestic car rental rates are up 10% this summer to $113 per day, according to Kayak. Last summer, rates dropped 14% after the car rental shortage ended. Internationally, rates are up 3% to an average of $88 per day.

But you can avoid the high prices with a little strategic planning, experts say.

What to avoid this summer

American travelers are becoming more predictable in their summer vacation choices, says John Lovell, president of Travel Leaders Group . Immediately after the pandemic, they embarked on “revenge” vacations to far-flung locations. Now they’re returning to more conventional vacations.

“We continue to see U.S. travelers heading back to the more traditional locations across Europe this year, like London, Rome, Athens and Munich,” he says.

There are places that will be exceptionally busy — and exceptionally pricey — this summer.

Paris during the Olympics. The Olympic Games are taking place in Paris this summer. Rooms are more than double the normal rates. which is typical of the Olympics. Paris is already crowded with tourists during the summer, so you can probably imagine what it will be like with the Olympics. Zut, alors!

Taylor Swift is touring Europe this summer. Prices will be higher and the crowds will be denser. “If you aren’t planning to attend one of her concerts, I recommend planning around those European cities when she’s there,” says Betsy Ball, co-founder of Euro Travel Coach . (Want to know if your schedules overlap? Here’s Taylor Swift’s concert schedule .)

Other big summer events. Even if you steer clear of Taylor and the Olympics, you’re still not out of the woods. There’s the UEFA Euro 2024 football tournament in Germany in June. There’s the Tour de France in July, which begins in Florence and finishes in Nice. France is also hosting the Paralympic Games in August and September, which will take place in Paris, Nice, Marseille and Bordeaux.

When is the best time to book a 2024 summer vacation?

Since this is going to be a busy one, the sooner you book, the better. Hopper recommends buying your airfare two to three months before your departure for domestic flights, and for international — well, it’s probably too late to get that rock-bottom fare. If you’re reading this in April, you can still find something for late August or early September, according to its airfare experts.

As always, you can save money by booking a flight for midweek instead of on the weekend — and, of course, by keeping far, far away from the big travel holidays like Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day. 

Also, if you’re going overseas, remember their holiday calendar is different. For example, half of Europe shuts down during August for summer vacation. It’s worth a lookup, otherwise, you could face some real disappointments.

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Strategies for traveling better during the summer

One tactic that consistently works is splitting your getaway into two sections. Take that required summer vacation with your family somewhere less expensive during the high season. Then, wait until shoulder season for the big trip. 

That’s what Ross Copas, a retired electrician from Tweed, Canada, is doing during the summer of 2024. It’s a road trip across the northern U.S. by motorcycle — New York to Washington state, and then back east through Canada. 

Then he’s heading to Amsterdam in September for a 23-day European river cruise. He says the late summer getaway will be costly, but he doubts fares will fall anytime soon. “So price be damned,” he adds.

Actually, that’s pretty smart. I took the same cruise he’s planning on Viking River Cruises many years ago, and it was worth every penny.

With hotel rates rising in some places this summer, this is the right time to consider alternatives. Monica Fish, a writer from Glen Rock, N.J., is headed to Ireland to catch one of Swift’s performances. She says hotel rooms in Dublin are overpriced if they’re even available. But Fish found an affordable vacation rental. 

“We just had to book it farther in advance than we normally would,” she says. 

Go ahead, follow the crowds this summer

I think it’s fine to follow the crowds this summer. I’ll be doing it. I’m planning to rent an apartment for a month in Switzerland with Blueground, a long-term apartment rental company. Then I’m crashing on a friend’s sofa in Spain, then heading to Sweden to see other friends and visiting my brother in Finland. Yes, travel writers know people everywhere . 

But don’t follow the crowds off a cliff. There are places even I won’t go. I might take the four-hour train trip from Zurich to Paris in June to check out my favorite patisseries, but I wouldn’t go anywhere near the City of Lights during the Summer Games in July unless I made a reservation a long time ago.

And Taylor Swift? Puh-leeze. I’m more of a jazz guy.

The opinions expressed in reader comments are those of the author only and do not reflect the opinions of The Seattle Times.

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2023 Travel Trends: COVID Concerns Are Declining

Cost and inflation have replaced covid-19 concerns as top barriers to travel..

by Vicki Levy, AARP Research , March 2023

Read the Detailed Findings

• 2023 Travel Trends (PDF)
• Travel Is Heating Up Among Women 50+ (Fact Sheet, PDF)
• Travelers 50-Plus: Annotated Questionnaire (PDF)
• Nontravelers 50-Plus: Annotated Questionnaire (PDF)

Get more travel tips, tools, and resources at AARP Travel

While most Americans say they are comfortable traveling again, many feel they can’t afford to because of rising inflation and high costs. 

A new AARP survey shows 81% of adults 50-plus who plan to travel in 2023 believe it’s safe to travel now (up from 77% in 2021). And just one in four say COVID-19 is a barrier to travel, compared to about a half who felt that way last year.

However, pandemic worry is being replaced with money concerns.

Inflation’s Impact

Cost is the main reason people are curbing traveling today, according to 52% of American travelers ages 50-plus in a late 2022 national poll. And 27% say financial concerns due to inflation are making them hesitant to vacation. Half of those who expected to travel more last year say it was money woes that altered their plans.

Notably altering their travel habits are those age 70 and older, who anticipate spending over 40% less on 2023 trips than they planned to for 2022. They also remain the most cautious age group concerning COVID-19.

On average, American adults intended to spend $8,369 on travel in 2022, but now plan to spend just $6,688 in 2023, the AARP research finds.

Still, a majority of adults (62%) age 50-plus will take at least one leisure trip in 2023 — and most will take between three and four trips.

Travel is one of the most popular ways to spend discretionary income: 85% of travelers surveyed rank travel among their top three priorities. This year, though, many Americans will vacation closer to home to save money. Domestic travel will be focused on family trips and weekend getaways, with fewer people planning solo trips in 2023.

AARP reports 61% of respondents say they are only taking trips within the United States, and most will drive to their destination — often hitting the road in the spring and summer. At this point in the previous year, 51% said they were limiting themselves to domestic travel. 

Destination Abroad

Some are venturing abroad, but the numbers are down. About four in ten travelers 50-plus expressed an intent to travel internationally, compared to about half who wanted to in 2022. 

Comparison of results from last year’s Travel Trends reveals a dip in interest in international cruises, from 27% to 18%. However, the survey shows that among age 50-plus travelers who are taking a cruise in 2023, the average number of cruises they’ve ever taken is 14. Most are taking ocean cruises (89%), and they are motivated by value and the chance to visit multiple locations.

Europe remains the most popular international destination, followed by Latin America, and the Caribbean.

The pandemic upended travel patterns for many, and the impact continues. Overall, women are more cautious than men in their travel plans.

2024 Surge?

The AARP survey reflects an uncertainty among nontravelers about traveling this year: 58% say it’s because of finances, and 20% are hesitant because of COVID-19. Still, about half intend to return to leisure travel in 2024, while fewer are interested in staycations than in the past.

Money that might have been spent on trips is largely being redirected to paying bills and reducing debt. And one-third are stashing away savings for future travel, although that’s down from 42% in 2022.

Among those who do travel, the trend is to take slightly fewer trips than in the past, but many are spending more locking in flexible travel options or staying longer than they usually would at a destination, AARP discovered. 

The majority (63%) of American travelers age 50-plus still embrace the idea of taking a “bucket list trip” — for many (39%) even more so than prior to the pandemic. The most common reasons keeping them from booking that dream vacation are the increase in travel costs (21%), health issues (16%), and less available discretionary income (12%). Travel restrictions, global unrest, and weather concerns were lesser factors.

Methodology

AARP gathered this data through a 15-minute online survey of 2,000 Americans age 18 and older conducted in November and December 2022. Respondents sampled had taken at least one trip within the past two years 50 miles or more away from home, with at least a two-night stay. They also were required to have used an online travel site within the past two years and intended to travel for leisure in 2023. For the nontraveler findings, a 10-minute online survey was administered to 500 Americans age 18 and over who do not plan to travel in 2023, but historically have traveled for leisure purposes.

For more information, please contact Vicki Levy at [email protected] . For media inquiries, contact External Relations at [email protected] .

Suggested citation:

Levy, Vicki. 2023 Travel Trends . Washington, DC: AARP Research, March 2023.  https://doi.org/10.26419/res.00592.001

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After curtailing vacations during the pandemic, a 2022 AARP survey finds Americans are beginning to feel more comfortable about traveling. 

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Prevalence and risk factors of post-COVID-19 condition in adults and children at 6 and 12 months after hospital discharge: a prospective, cohort study in Moscow (StopCOVID)

Ekaterina pazukhina.

1 Laboratory of Health Economics, Institute of Applied Economic Studies, The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia

2 Center for Advanced Financial Planning, Macroeconomic Analysis and Financial Statistics, Financial Research Institute of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia

Margarita Andreeva

3 Department of Paediatrics and Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Institute of Child’s Health, Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University), Moscow, Russia

Ekaterina Spiridonova

Polina bobkova, anastasia shikhaleva, yasmin el-taravi, mikhail rumyantsev, aysylu gamirova, anastasiia bairashevskaia, polina petrova, dina baimukhambetova, maria pikuza, elina abdeeva, yulia filippova, salima deunezhewa, nikita nekliudov, polina bugaeva, nikolay bulanov.

4 Tareev Clinic of Internal Diseases, Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University), Moscow, Russia

Sergey Avdeev

5 Clinic of Pulmonology, Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University), Moscow, Russia

Valentina Kapustina

6 Department of Internal Medicine №1, Institute of Clinical Medicine, Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University), Moscow, Russia

Alla Guekht

7 Research and Clinical Center for Neuropsychiatry, Moscow, Russia

8 Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University, Moscow, Russia

Audrey DunnGalvin

9 School of Applied Psychology, University College Cork, Cork City, Ireland

Pasquale Comberiati

10 Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Section of Pediatrics, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

Diego G. Peroni

Christian apfelbacher.

11 Institute of Social Medicine and Health Systems Research, Faculty of Medicine, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany

Jon Genuneit

12 Pediatric Epidemiology, Department of Pediatrics, Medical Faculty, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany

Luis Felipe Reyes

13 Universidad de La Sabana, Chía, Colombia

14 Clínica Universidad de La Sabana, Chía, Colombia

Caroline L. H. Brackel

15 Department of Pediatric Pulmonology, Emma Children’s Hospital, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

16 Department of Pediatrics, Tergooi MC, Hilversum, the Netherlands

Victor Fomin

17 Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University), Moscow, Russia

Andrey A. Svistunov

Peter timashev.

18 Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University), Moscow, Russia

Lyudmila Mazankova

19 Russian Medical Academy of Continuous Professional Education of the Ministry of Healthcare of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia

Alexandra Miroshina

20 ZA Bashlyaeva Children’s Municipal Clinical Hospital, Moscow, Russia

Elmira Samitova

Svetlana borzakova.

21 Research Institute for Healthcare Organization and Medical Management of Moscow Healthcare Department, Moscow, Russia

Elena Bondarenko

Anatoliy a. korsunskiy, gail carson.

22 Nuffield Department of Medicine, ISARIC Global Support Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Louise Sigfrid

Janet t. scott.

23 MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, Glasgow, UK

Matthew Greenhawt

24 Department of Pediatrics, Section of Allergy/Immunology, Children’s Hospital Colorado, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, USA

Danilo Buonsenso

25 Department of Woman and Child Health and Public Health, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCS, Rome, Italy

26 Dipartimento di Scienze Biotecnologiche di Base, Cliniche Intensivologiche e Perioperatorie, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy

27 Center for Global Health Research and Studies, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Roma, Italia

Malcolm G. Semple

28 Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections, Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

29 Department of Respiratory Medicine, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool, UK

John O. Warner

30 Inflammation, Repair and Development Section, National Heart and Lung Institute, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, UK

Piero Olliaro

Dale m. needham.

31 Outcomes After Critical Illness and Surgery (OACIS) Research Group, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD USA

32 Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD USA

33 Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD USA

Petr Glybochko

Denis butnaru, ismail m. osmanov, daniel munblit, associated data.

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, DM, upon reasonable request.

Previous studies assessing the prevalence of COVID-19 sequelae in adults and children were performed in the absence of an agreed definition. We investigated prevalence of post-COVID-19 condition (PCC) (WHO definition), at 6- and 12-months follow-up, amongst previously hospitalised adults and children and assessed risk factors.

Prospective cohort study of children and adults with confirmed COVID-19 in Moscow, hospitalised between April and August, 2020. Two follow-up telephone interviews, using the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium survey, were performed at 6 and 12 months after discharge.

One thousand thirteen of 2509 (40%) of adults and 360 of 849 (42%) of children discharged participated in both the 6- and 12-month follow-ups. PCC prevalence was 50% (95% CI 47–53) in adults and 20% (95% CI 16–24) in children at 6 months, with decline to 34% (95% CI 31–37) and 11% (95% CI 8–14), respectively, at 12 months. In adults, female sex was associated with PCC at 6- and 12-month follow-up (OR 2.04, 95% CI 1.57 to 2.65) and (OR 2.04, 1.54 to 2.69), respectively. Pre-existing hypertension (OR 1.42, 1.04 to 1.94) was associated with post-COVID-19 condition at 12 months. In children, neurological comorbidities were associated with PCC both at 6 months (OR 4.38, 1.36 to 15.67) and 12 months (OR 8.96, 2.55 to 34.82) while allergic respiratory diseases were associated at 12 months (OR 2.66, 1.04 to 6.47).

Conclusions

Although prevalence of PCC declined one year after discharge, one in three adults and one in ten children experienced ongoing sequelae. In adults, females and persons with pre-existing hypertension, and in children, persons with neurological comorbidities or allergic respiratory diseases are at higher risk of PCC.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12916-022-02448-4.

Although most people fully recover from acute infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV-2) and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) disease, some experience ongoing sequelae [ 1 ]. This wide range of symptoms occurring in the weeks to months after SARS-CoV-2 infection has been referred to as either long COVID, post-COVID-19 condition, or post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC), amongst other names [ 2 ]. High profile editorials [ 3 , 4 ] drew attention to an increasing number of people experiencing these ongoing sequelae and called for comprehensive research, including risk factors and clinical features.

Most post-COVID research has focused on adults [ 5 ], given the predominance of adult COVID-19 in the first pandemic waves, which appeared to spare children, somewhat. Therefore, there is a more limited number of paediatric studies [ 6 ], although the need for research on COVID-19 consequences in children and young people has been previously acknowledged and has grown in importance with emergence of variants that are affecting children [ 7 ]. Head-to-head comparison of COVID-19 sequelae in children and adults is still lacking.

Many studies have investigated the prevalence and risk factors of long COVID [ 5 ], but heterogeneity in patient assessment and definitions [ 8 ] and lack of data regarding symptom duration are challenges to meta-analyses. Notably, in September 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) Classification and Terminologies unit created International Classification of Diseases 10 (ICD-10) and ICD-11 codes for post-COVID-19 condition, and in October 2021, a clinical case definition of post-COVID-19 condition was announced, following a Delphi consensus process [ 9 ]. It was defined as a condition occurring “in individuals with a history of probable or confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, usually 3 months from the onset of COVID-19 with symptoms that last for at least 2 months and cannot be explained by an alternative diagnosis”. However, this definition was intended for adults, and WHO suggests that a separate definition might be applicable for children.

This prospective study aimed to investigate the prevalence and characteristics of post-COVID-19 condition in previously hospitalised children and adults using standardised follow-up data collection protocols developed by the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) Global Adult and Paediatric COVID-19 follow-up working groups.

The study is reported based on the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) checklist for cohort studies ( https://www.strobe-statement.org/ ), which can be found in the supplementary material.

Study design, setting, and participants

This study combines data from two longitudinal prospective cohorts of patients with COVID-19: (a) adults admitted to Sechenov University Hospital Network (four large tertiary adult hospitals) in Moscow, Russia, and (b) children admitted to Z.A. Bashlyaeva Children’s Municipal Clinical Hospital in Moscow, Russia (the primary paediatric COVID-19 hospital in Moscow throughout the time of pandemic). Only patients with positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection were included in this study. Details regarding the demographic profile, hospitalisation requirements and origination of these cohorts are comprehensively described elsewhere [ 10 , 11 ]. In brief, to form and define the cohorts, the acute phase data of adult and paediatric patients were extracted from electronic medical records (EMR) and the Local Health Information System (HIS) at the host institutions using ISARIC Core case report form (CRF) for acute phase data collection. The acute-phase datasets included demographics, comorbidities, symptoms on admission, computed tomography results, and disease severity, including use of supportive therapies.

Data collection and entry were performed by a team of trained medical students and physician residents, with extensive relevant research experience, via telephone interviews and the Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) database [ 10 – 12 ], with supervision by senior academic researchers.

Given the well-recognised emergence of COVID-19 infection sequelae, this follow-up study was planned to track prevalence and risk factors for the development of such sequelae occurring after hospital discharge. Data were obtained at two follow-up points, at 6 (± 2) and 12 (± 2) months after hospital discharge. These follow-up assessments, collected via telephone interviews, used the Tier 1 ISARIC Long-term Follow-up Study CRF for adult patients and version 1 of the ISARIC COVID-19 Health and Wellbeing Follow Up Survey for Children for paediatric patients, both developed by the ISARIC Global COVID-19 follow-up working group and independently forward and backward translated into Russian. These follow-up assessments evaluated patients’ physical and mental health status and assessed for any newly developed symptoms between hospital discharge and the follow-up assessment, including symptom onset and duration as previously described [ 11 ]. Given the well-recognised emergence of post-COVID infection sequelae, this follow-up study was planned to track prevalence and risk factors for the development of such sequelae occurring after hospital discharge.

The acute-hospitalisation dataset included demographics, symptoms, comorbidities (at the time of hospital admission for COVID-19), chest computed tomography (CT) results, supportive care required, and clinical outcomes at the time of discharge.

Data management

REDCap electronic data capture tools (Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA) hosted at Sechenov University and Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Corp, Redmond, WA, USA) were used for data collection, storage, and management [ 13 , 14 ].

Definitions

Post-COVID-19 condition was defined as the presence of any symptom which started no later than three months after hospital discharge and lasted for at least 2 months as per the WHO case definition [ 9 ]. Symptom duration was calculated from the time of the hospital discharge in the absence of reliable objective medical record data regarding date of first symptoms appearance.

Patients requiring non-invasive ventilation, invasive ventilation, or intensive care unit (ICU) care during acute phase of COVID-19 were defined as severe.

Symptoms were categorised into nine manifestations: cardiovascular, dermatological, fatigue, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, neurocognitive, respiratory, sensory, and sleep (Table S 1 ). Symptom categorisation was based on previously published literature and ISARIC working groups’ discussion [ 10 , 11 ].

Statistical analysis

Descriptive statistics were calculated for baseline characteristics. Continuous variables were summarised as median (interquartile range, IQR) and categorical variables as frequency (percentage). 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were obtained for the estimates of post-COVID-19 condition prevalence using bootstrap methodology (10,000 iterations).

Forest plots were used to present the prevalence of post-COVID-19 condition and different manifestations. Circular dendrograms were used to illustrate coexistence of post-COVID-19 condition manifestations. The phenotypes of post-COVID-19 condition were presented using radial plots. The cut-off for defining a phenotype presentation was set at 2% of respondents reporting multiple manifestations. For children, due to a low number of respondents reporting multiple manifestations, all individuals were presented on the plots.

We included all participants with post-COVID-19 condition in the final analysis, without missing data imputation. In order to control for recall bias at 12-month follow-up, we considered post-COVID-19 condition manifestations only amongst those manifestations which were reported at 6-months and satisfied the WHO definition of post-COVID-19 condition. Only patients completing both 6-month and 12-month follow-up were included in this study analysis similarly to previously published large cohort studies [ 15 ].

Multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed separately for adults and children to investigate associations of demographic characteristics and comorbidities at hospital admission with COVID-19 (limited to those variables reported in > 3% of study participants) and severity of COVID-19 with post-COVID-19 condition prevalence at the time of the follow-up interviews. Selection of the variables was the following: “COVID-19 severity” variable as exposure, “post-COVID-19 condition” as an outcome, comorbidities as covariates, gender, and age as effect modifiers. Twelve variables in adults and seven in children were tested as potential risk factors based on data availability and previous research [ 10 , 11 , 15 – 18 ]. We included all participants for whom the variables of interest were available in the final analysis, without imputing missing data. Odds ratios were calculated together with 95% CIs.

Two-sided p -values were reported for all statistical tests, a p -value below 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Statistical analysis was performed in R version 4.0.2 using libraries dplyr, foreign, forestplot, ograph, and ggraph [ 19 ].

Out of 2509 eligible adults and 849 eligible children with laboratory confirmed COVID-19 discharged between April and August 2020, 1994 (79%) and 832 (98%) had contact information, and of these, 1013 (40% of discharged, 51% of those with contact information) adults and 360 children (42% of discharged, 43% of those with contact information) participated in both follow-up interviews and were included in the final analysis (Fig.  1 ). The 6-month follow-up interviews were conducted between November 2020 and March 2021 and the 12-month follow-up between April 2021 and August 2021.

Flow diagram of patients admitted with PCR-confirmed COVID-19 to Sechenov University Hospital Network (adults) and Z.A. Bashlyaeva Children’s Municipal Clinical Hospital (children)

Table  1 shows the demographic and clinical characteristics of the study participants. For adults the median time, after hospital discharge, to the 6- and 12-month assessments was 215 days (IQR 196–235) and 383 days (IQR 376–390). The median age of adult patients was 56.8 years (IQR 47.0–65.8), and 49% (500/1013) were male. The most common pre-existing comorbidity in adults at admission was hypertension (45%, 458/1013), followed by chronic cardiac disease and excessive weight and obesity (20% each, 198/1013) and type II diabetes (15%, 148/1013). Three percent of patients (27/1013) required non-invasive ventilation, invasive ventilation, or ICU care during hospitalisation.

Demographic characteristics of adults admitted to the Sechenov University Hospital Network and children admitted to the Z.A. Bashlyaeva Children’s Municipal Clinical Hospital. Data are n (%) or median (IQR) excluding missing values. ICU, intensive care unit

For children, the median time to the 6-month follow-up was 255 days (IQR 223–270) and to the 12-month follow-up 367 days (IQR 351–379). The median paediatric patient age was 9.5 years (IQR 2.4–14.8), and 48% (174/360) were male. Three percent of children (12/360) required non-invasive ventilation, invasive ventilation, or treatment in the ICU during hospitalisation. The most common comorbidities in children were allergic rhinitis (7%, 26/360) and intestinal problems (7%, 25/360).

Figure  2 shows the temporal trend in post-COVID-19 condition manifestations prevalence. Prevalence was significantly higher in adults compared with children at both 6-month and 12-month follow-up ( p  < 0·001): relative risk of any manifestation 2.51 (2.02 to 3.11) at 6 months and 3.07 (2.26 to 4.16) at 12 months. The difference in prevalence of each specific manifestation between adults and children is shown in tables S 2 and S 3 . The proportion of individuals with at least one post-COVID-19 condition manifestation decreased from 50% (95% CI 47–53) at 6 months to 34% (95% CI 31–37) at 12 months in adults and from 20% (95% CI 16–24) to 11% (95% CI 8–14), respectively, in children. A decline in prevalence was observed across all manifestations.

Forest plots demonstrating the prevalence of post-COVID-19 condition manifestations in adults and children 6 and 12 months after hospital discharge. Sixth-month prevalence is coloured in red, and 12-month prevalence is coloured in blue. Estimates of the prevalence 95% confidence intervals were calculated using the bootstrapping method

In adults, the most common post-COVID-19 condition features at 6-month follow-up included fatigue 25% (95% CI 22–28), respiratory 22% (95%CI 20–25), neuro-cognitive 19% (95% CI 17–21), and dermatological 13% (95% CI 11–15) manifestations. At 12 months after the hospital discharge, the prevalence decreased to 12% (95% CI 10–14), 10% (95% CI 8–11), 9% (95% CI 7–11), and 4% (95% CI 3–5) respectively.

In children, the most common post-COVID-19 condition features at 6-month follow-up were fatigue 9% (95% CI 6–13), dermatological 5% (95% CI 3–7), neuro-cognitive 4% (95% CI 2–6), and sleep-related 4% (95% CI 2–6) manifestations. At the 12-month follow-up, these decreased to 4% (95% CI 2–6), 2% (95% CI 1–4), 2% (95% CI 1–3), and 1% (95% CI 0–1) respectively.

We investigated the phenotypes of post-COVID-19 condition in adults and children, defined as a report of two or more different manifestations at 6-month assessment (Figs.  3 and ​ and4). 4 ). Amongst adults, 28% (287/1013) reported at least two manifestations. We differentiated three prevalent phenotypes at 6 months, namely (a) fatigue/respiratory without neurological manifestations (10%, 29/287); (b) fatigue/respiratory with neurological manifestations (7%, 19/287); and (c) fatigue/neurological without respiratory manifestations (6%, 17/287), regardless of other manifestations reported. By 12 months, 41% (12/29) of people with fatigue/respiratory without neurological manifestations fully recovered, while only 21% (4/19) of fatigue/respiratory with neurological manifestations and 24% (4/17) of fatigue/neurological without respiratory manifestations were symptom-free (Additional file  1 : Figure S1).

Interrelations between the post-COVID-19 condition manifestations in adults and children 6 and 12 months since hospital discharge. Bubble diameter is proportional to the proportion of individuals with the symptom category reported. Line thickness is proportional to the number of individuals with the coexisting manifestations. Cardiovascular, CRD; dermatological, DRM; fatigue, FTG; gastrointestinal, GST; musculoskeletal, MSC; neurocognitive, NRL; respiratory, RSP; sensory, SNS; sleep, SLP

A Radial plots representing post-COVID-19 condition phenotypes in adults at 6 months after discharge and 12 months after discharge. Manifestations are shown for each patient; each segment represents a single patient. Thick black lines are used to distinct phenotypes. Cardiovascular, CRD; dermatological, DRM; fatigue, FTG; gastrointestinal, GST; musculoskeletal, MSC; neurocognitive, NRL; respiratory, RSP; sensory, SNS; sleep, SLP. B Radial plots representing post-COVID-19 condition phenotypes in children at 6 months after discharge and 12 months after discharge. Manifestations are shown for each patient; each segment represents a single patient. Thick black lines are used to distinct phenotypes. Cardiovascular, CRD; dermatological, DRM; fatigue, FTG; gastrointestinal, GST; musculoskeletal, MSC; neurocognitive, NRL; respiratory, RSP; sensory, SNS; sleep, SLP

In children, phenotypes were less feasible to assess due to a smaller case count of post-COVID-19 condition. Seven percent (25/360) of children had a combination of manifestations at 6-month follow-up. The only characteristic phenotype amongst individuals with coexisting manifestations was fatigue/neurological (24%, 6/25), with 50% (3/6) of these having fully resolved by 12 months.

Risk factors association with post-COVID-19 condition 6- and 12-months after hospital discharge were assessed in multivariable regression analysis separately for adults and children (Fig.  5 ).

A Multivariable logistic regression model demonstrating risk factors associated with post-COVID-19 condition in adults at 6-month follow-up. Odds ratios and 95% CIs are presented. B Multivariable logistic regression model demonstrating risk factors associated with post-COVID-19 condition in adults at 12-month follow-up. Odds ratios and 95% CIs are presented. C Multivariable logistic regression model demonstrating risk factors associated with post-COVID-19 condition in children at 6-month follow-up. Odds ratios and 95% CIs are presented. D Multivariable logistic regression model demonstrating risk factors associated with post-COVID-19 condition in children at 12-month follow-up. Odds ratios and 95% CIs are presented

In adults, female sex was the only statistically significant risk factor of post-COVID-19 condition at both 6-month (odds ratio of 2.04 (95% CI 1.57 to 2.65) and 12-month (2.04, 1.54 to 2.69) follow-up. Pre-existing hypertension was also (1.42, 1.04 to 1.94) independently associated with post-COVID-19 condition at 12 months only.

In children, pre-existing neurological comorbidities were associated with post-COVID-19 condition at both 6-months (4.38, 1.36 to 15.67) and 12 months (8.96, 2.55 to 34.82). History of allergic respiratory diseases was a risk factor (2.66, 1.04 to 6.47) for post-COVID-19 condition at 12 months only.

This prospective cohort study with 1013 adults and 360 children, who were previously hospitalised with laboratory confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, assessed the 6- and 12-month prevalence of post-COVID-19 condition, according to the WHO case definition, along with phenotypes and risk factors. We found that half of adults and one of five children had post-COVID-19 condition at 6 months follow-up, with fatigue being the most common manifestation. Although prevalence of post-COVID-19 condition declined between 6- and 12-month assessment, one in three adults and one in ten children still had sequelae. Post-COVID-19 condition was experienced by both sexes, with a higher risk amongst adult women. Pre-existing hypertension (adults) and pre-existing neurological comorbidities and allergic respiratory diseases (children) were associated with post-COVID-19 condition.

The prevalence of post-COVID-19 condition was significantly higher in adults and the risk of post-COVID-19 condition was 2.5 and 3 times higher in adults relative to children 6 and 12 months post-hospital discharge, respectively. This was true also for individual symptom groups, except gastrointestinal at 6 months, and cardiovascular, dermatological, and gastrointestinal at 12 months. Although persistent symptoms of COVID-19 have been assessed in many studies [ 5 ], most published research was performed prior to the WHO post-COVID-19 case definition [ 9 ] in absence of agreed terminology and associated data heterogeneity. With differences in methodology, outcome definitions, and absence of symptom duration measurement across cohorts, it is difficult to evaluate the prevalence of post-COVID-19 condition. Another limitation in the existing literature is the inadequate knowledge of COVID-19 sequelae in children [ 6 ] and the lack of direct head-to-head comparison of its features and prevalence in adults and children, which do not allow for complete understanding if manifestations behave differently based on age.

Persistence of symptoms is a worrisome issue, with half of the adults in our study reported post-COVID-19 condition at 6 months, and 34% still experiencing one or more manifestations 12 months after discharge. This finding is consistent with data from China, which reported a high rate of single sequelae symptom prevalence and decrease from 68% at 6 months to 49% at 12 months [ 15 ]. Difference in prevalence may be related differences in post-COVID condition definitions, as the Chinese study was published before the WHO case definition announcement. We found a twofold decrease in the prevalence of post-COVID-19 condition from 20% between 6 and 12 months in children. To our knowledge, this is the first study reporting consequences of COVID-19 in children 1 year after acute episode, though we did detect persistent symptoms 6 months after hospital discharge in children in a previous study especially in older children and those with allergic disease [ 11 ]. Fatigue was the most common manifestation in both children and adults, regardless of the follow-up time point, though proportionally more adults than children reported fatigue. This finding is consistent with prior data [ 5 , 6 ]. In adults and children, respiratory manifestations were reported in 20% and 2%, respectively. This difference may be related to greater severity of viral pneumonia in adults, as well as greater baseline respiratory comorbidity [ 20 ]. More frequent incidental infection rates may also confer some degree of non-specific immunological protection but the association with pre-existing respiratory allergy suggests that allergic hypersensitivity and/or auto-immune responses are involved. More research into pathophysiology and immune mechanisms is required to establish the cause of described association.

One third of individuals with post-COVID-19 condition can be classified by a phenotypes, of combined manifestations. One in five can be characterised by a combination of fatigue and respiratory with or without neurological manifestations. These results are similar to those reported by Taquet and colleagues [ 21 ]. We found that people without neurological manifestations become asymptomatic by 12 months more frequently than those reporting neurological manifestations at 6 months. However, due to a limited number of individuals available for phenotyping, it is premature to make any definitive conclusions.

The risk of post-COVID-19 condition was twice as high in female as in male adult patient at both time points, in line with previous studies assessing persistent symptoms [ 15 , 17 , 22 ]. Pre-existing hypertension was associated with post-COVID-19 condition at 12 months in adults. The association between pre-existing hypertension and higher risk of post-COVID-19 condition 12 months after hospital discharge in adults has not been previously reported [ 23 ], which may be explained by the difference in outcome definition. Pre-existing neurological comorbidities and allergic respiratory diseases were associated with post-COVID-19 in children. While allergic diseases are felt to be protective of developing COVID-19, this may become a risk factor for the sequelae development and merits further consideration. It was previously hypothesised that allergic conditions may increase the risk of long-term consequences following COVID-19 and that eosinophils, mast cells, or Th-2 responses may be potentially involved in the immunopathology of post-COVID-19 condition [ 24 ], but large prospective studies with biological material collection are required to confirm this.

This study has both strengths and limitations. Strengths include the following: (1) using of standardised ISARIC Long-term Follow-up Study CRFs for adults and children; (2) using the WHO post-COVID-19 condition definition; (3) enrolling both adults and children and comparing the two cohorts; and (4) a relatively large sample size of people attending both the 6- and 12-month follow-up visits, one of the longest follow-up assessments of hospitalised patients to-date. Limitations include the following: (1) questions about spectrum composition, as we enrolled only patients from Moscow (which may limit generalisability), a low proportion of whom had severe COVID-19—issues shared with most major COVID-19 cohort studies. This limitation is balanced by their otherwise being a paucity of data from eastern Europe regarding any COVID-19 outcomes, which becomes a novelty; (2) acute data were collected from the electronic medical records with no access to additional information that could be potentially retrieved from the medical notes—we mitigated potential inaccuracies of demographic information reported by the patients/parents/carers at the time of the hospital admission with subsequent verification during follow-up telephone interviews. This is an accepted and common limitation of cohorts assembled using this methodology; (3) a low proportion of patients with severe COVID-19 patients amongst both adults and children in our cohort limits the generalisability of the study findings to hospitalised patients with more mild to moderate COVID-19; (4) parents/caregivers were interviewed in this study and not children themselves, which is an accepted limitation of paediatric research conducted in children of a particular age; (5) a risk of potential selection bias, for instance with those with symptoms more likely to agree to survey and thus overestimating the prevalence of post-COVID-19 condition [ 25 ], as only 68% of adults and 62% of children for whom we had contact information agreed to participate in our study, and 51% and 42% respectively completing both visits—although retention of over 40% is generally considered good and rates here are comparable or higher than in the recent similar cohort studies [ 15 , 26 ]. Any attrition from a cohort may result in a substantial overestimation of the prevalence of post-COVID-19 condition as those who do remain in the cohort may represent a biased sample [ 25 ]. However, we did not find significant differences between respondents and non-respondents (Table S 4 ); (6) telephone interviews were used in this study, and we acknowledge that face-to-face interviews and/or objective measurements would deliver more robust results. However, financial and pandemic restrictions did not allow for this; (7) the study used hospitalised patients’ data. Interpretation of the data gathered from such sample may be prone to collider bias, as the sample is non-random as is conditions on hospital admission.

We used the ISARIC/WHO Clinical Characterisation Protocol, a prospective pandemic preparedness protocol which is agnostic to disease and has a pragmatic design to allow recruitment during pandemic conditions. As we already underlined in previous publications, the reality of conducting research in outbreak conditions is such that appropriate co-enrolment of a control group is practically challenging, primarily because COVID-19 has overshadowed other infections which could be used as comparators, and because of the lack of agreement on a commonly accepted control group [ 10 ].

This study has shown that half of adults and one of five children have post-COVID-19 condition, as per WHO case definition, 6 months after hospital discharge, with fatigue being the most common manifestation. Respiratory manifestations also were a major problem in adults. Although the prevalence of post-COVID-19 condition declined, one in three adults and one in ten children still had manifestations at 12 months follow-up. Post-COVID-19 condition was more common adult women and amongst adults with pre-existing hypertension. In children, pre-existing neurological comorbidities and allergic respiratory diseases were associated with post-COVID-19 condition. Future studies should define COVID-19 as per the new WHO case definition to allow for a better comparability. Further investigation of risk factors and underlying physiological and immunological mechanisms merit further consideration.

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to the Sechenov University Hospital Network and Z.A. Bashlyaeva Children’s Municipal Clinical Hospital clinical staff and to the patients, parents, carers and families for their kindness and understanding during these difficult times of COVID-19 pandemic. We would also like to thank UK Embassy in Moscow for providing a grant. We would like to express our very great appreciation to ISARIC Global COVID-19 follow-up working group for the survey development. We would like to thank Mr Maksim Kholopov for providing technical support in data collection and database administration. We are grateful to Daria Bessonova, Olga Burencheva, Natalia Chepelova, Natalia Gorbova, Rina Grigoryan, Sapiat Isaeva, Alena Khrapkova, Ildar Khusainov, Tatiana Kokorina, Margaret Kvaratskheliya, Daria Levina, Anna Lunicheva, Margarita Mikheeva, Elizaveta Mikhsin, Roman Movsisyan, Veronika Palchikova, Maxim Privalov, Tatiana Reznikova, Olga Sokova, Ivan Timchenko, Anna Zezyulina, and Mikhail Zhilinsky for their help at different stages of the project. We are very thankful to FLIP, Eat & Talk, Luch, Black Market, and Academia for providing us the workspace in time of need and their support of COVID-19 research. Finally, we would like to extend our gratitude to the Global ISARIC team, the ISARIC global adult and paediatric COVID-19 follow-up working group, and ISARIC Global support centre for their continuous support and expertise and for the development of the outbreak ready standardised protocols for the data collection.

Sechenov StopCOVID Research Team:

Nikol Alekseeva, Elena Artigas, Asmik Avagyan, Lusine Baziyants, Anna Belkina, Anna Berbenyuk, Tatiana Bezbabicheva, Vadim Bezrukov, Semyon Bordyugov, Aleksandra Borisenko, Maria Bratukhina, Ekaterina Bugaiskaya, Julia Chayka, Yulia Cherdantseva, Natalia Degtyareva, Olesya Druzhkova, Alexander Dubinin, Khalisa Elifkhanova, Dmitry Eliseev, Anastasia Ezhova, Aleksandra Frolova, Julia Ganieva, Anastasia Gorina, Cyrill Gorlenko, Elizaveta Gribaleva, Eliza Gudratova, Shabnam Ibragimova, Khadizhat Kabieva, Yulia Kalan, Margarita Kalinina, Nadezhda Khitrina, Bogdan Kirillov, Herman Kiseljow, Maria Kislova, Natalya Kogut, Irina Konova, Mariia Korgunova, Anastasia Kotelnikova, Karina Kovygina, Alexandra Krupina, Anastasia Kuznetsova, Anna Kuznetsova, Baina Lavginova, Elza Lidjieva, Ekaterina Listovskaya, Maria Lobova, Maria Loshkareva, Ekaterina Lyubimova, Daria Mamchich, Nadezhda Markina, Anastasia Maystrenko, Aigun Mursalova, Evgeniy Nagornov, Anna Nartova, Daria Nikolaeva, Georgiy Novoselov, Marina Ogandzhanova, Anna Pavlenko, Olga Perekosova, Erika Porubayeva, Kristina Presnyakova, Anna Pushkareva, Olga Romanova, Philipp Roshchin, Diana Salakhova, Ilona Sarukhanyan, Victoria Savina, Jamilya Shatrova, Nataliya Shishkina, Anastasia Shvedova, Denis Smirnov, Veronika Solovieva, Olga Spasskaya, Olga Sukhodolskaya, Shakir Suleimanov, Nailya Urmantaeva, Olga Usalka, Valeria Ustyan, Yana Valieva, Katerina Varaksina, Maria Varaksina Ekaterina Varlamova, Maria Vodianova, Margarita Yegiyan, Margarita Zaikina, Anastasia Zorina, Elena Zuykova.

Abbreviations

Authors’ contributions.

DM, DBu, and IMO conceptualised the project and formulated research goals and aims. EP, MA, ESp, PBo, PBu, NN, AS, YET, MR, AGa, AGu, NBu, SA, VK, and DM were responsible for the study design and methodology and participated in the overall project design discussions. ADG, PC, DGP, CA, JG, LFR, CLHB, GC, LS, JTS, MG, DaBu, MGS, JOW, PO, and DMN participated in the CRF development and/or provided expert input at different stages of the project. EP implemented the computer code and supporting algorithms and tested of existing code components. DM and EP tested hypotheses and discussed statistical analyses. EP performed statistical analysis. The StopCOVID Research Team, NN, PBu, MA, AGa, AS, AB, PP, DBa, MP, EA, YF, and SD conducted a research and investigation process, specifically performed data extraction, telephone interviews, and data collection. VF, AAS, PT, LM, AM, ESa, SB, EB, AAK, DM, DB, and PG provided study materials, access to patient data, laboratory data, and computing resources. MA, ESp, PBo, PBu, YET, and MR managed activities to annotate metadata and maintain research data for initial use and later reuse. EP prepared visualisation and worked under DM supervision on the data presentation. DM was responsible for the oversight and leadership for the research activity planning and execution. DM, DB, PBo, ES, AS, AG, and EP provided management and coordination for the research activity planning and execution. VF, AAS, PT, IMO, DB, PG, and DM were responsible for the acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication. EP, NN, and DM wrote original draft. All the authors critically reviewed and commented on the manuscript draft at both, pre-and post-submission stages. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

No external funding.

Availability of data and materials

Declarations.

This study was approved by the Sechenov University Local Ethics Committee on April 22, 2020 (protocol number 08–20, protocol amendment enabling serial follow-up of the cohort was approved on November 13, 2020), and Moscow City Independent Ethics Committee (abbreviate 1, protocol number 74). Parental consent was sought during hospital admission, and consent for the follow-up interview was sought via verbal confirmation during telephone interview. The consent process was approved by the ethics.

Not applicable.

JTS is supported by Welcome. CLHB declares a grant from The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development. CA declares grant by Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for EgePan Unimed project involving research activities on post-COVID-19 condition received by his institution. JG declares grants from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, German Federal Ministry of Health, and Danone Nutricia Research reception by his institution. He also reports Danone Nutricia Research patents in the area of breast milk composition pending. He acknowledges receiving an honorarium for serving as an Associate Editor for the Journal Pediatric Allergy and Immunology. MGS reports grants from the National Institute of Health Research UK, Medical Research Council UK, and Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging & Zoonotic Infections, University of Liverpool. He is also an independent external and non-remunerated member of Pfizer’s External Data Monitoring Committee for their mRNA vaccine program(s), a Chair of Infectious Disease Scientific Advisory Board of Integrum Scientific LLC, Greensboro, NC, USA, director of MedEx Solutions Ltd. He also declares being a minority owner at Integrum Scientific LLC, Greensboro, NC, USA, and majority owner at MedEx Solutions Ltd. He reports that a gift from Chiesi Farmaceutici S.p.A. was received by his Institution of Clinical Trial Investigational Medicinal Product without encumbrance and distribution of same to trial sites. He also serves as a non-remunerated independent member of HMG UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), COVID-19 Response, and HMG UK New Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG). LS declares project funding from the Welcome Trust. DB has participated to a peer-to-peer (PAACE) educational program on long COVID, sponsored by Pfizer. JOW reports funding from Danone/Nutricia, Friesland-Campina, and Airsonett. He also serves an Anaphylaxis Campaign clinical and scientific panel chairman and acknowledges travel expenses as a speaker covered by the World Allergy Organisation. DM reports receipt of grants from the British Embassy in Moscow, UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and Russian Foundation for Basic Research. He also Co-Chair of International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) Global Paediatric Long COVID Working Group, member of ISARIC working group on long-term follow-up in adults, and co-lead of the PC-COS project. Other authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Ekaterina Pazukhina, Margarita Andreeva, Ekaterina Spiridonova, Polina Bobkova, Anastasia Shikhaleva, Yasmin El-Taravi, Mikhail Rumyantsev, Aysylu Gamirova, Ismail M Osmanov, and Daniel Munblit contributed equally to the paper.

Contributor Information

Sechenov StopCOVID Research Team: Nikol Alekseeva , Elena Artigas , Asmik Avagyan , Lusine Baziyants , Anna Belkina , Anna Berbenyuk , Tatiana Bezbabicheva , Vadim Bezrukov , Semyon Bordyugov , Aleksandra Borisenko , Maria Bratukhina , Ekaterina Bugaiskaya , Julia Chayka , Yulia Cherdantseva , Natalia Degtyareva , Olesya Druzhkova , Alexander Dubinin , Khalisa Elifkhanova , Dmitry Eliseev , Anastasia Ezhova , Aleksandra Frolova , Julia Ganieva , Anastasia Gorina , Cyrill Gorlenko , Elizaveta Gribaleva , Eliza Gudratova , Shabnam Ibragimova , Khadizhat Kabieva , Yulia Kalan , Margarita Kalinina , Nadezhda Khitrina , Bogdan Kirillov , Herman Kiseljow , Maria Kislova , Natalya Kogut , Irina Konova , Mariia Korgunova , Anastasia Kotelnikova , Karina Kovygina , Alexandra Krupina , Anastasia Kuznetsova , Anna Kuznetsova , Baina Lavginova , Elza Lidjieva , Ekaterina Listovskaya , Maria Lobova , Maria Loshkareva , Ekaterina Lyubimova , Daria Mamchich , Nadezhda Markina , Anastasia Maystrenko , Aigun Mursalova , Evgeniy Nagornov , Anna Nartova , Daria Nikolaeva , Georgiy Novoselov , Marina Ogandzhanova , Anna Pavlenko , Olga Perekosova , Erika Porubayeva , Kristina Presnyakova , Anna Pushkareva , Olga Romanova , Philipp Roshchin , Diana Salakhova , Ilona Sarukhanyan , Victoria Savina , Jamilya Shatrova , Nataliya Shishkina , Anastasia Shvedova , Denis Smirnov , Veronika Solovieva , Olga Spasskaya , Olga Sukhodolskaya , Shakir Suleimanov , Nailya Urmantaeva , Olga Usalka , Valeria Ustyan , Yana Valieva , Katerina Varaksina , Maria Varaksina , Ekaterina Varlamova , Maria Vodianova , Margarita Yegiyan , Margarita Zaikina , Anastasia Zorina , and Elena Zuykova