The State of the American Traveler in November 2026 — Travel Sentiment Holds Even as Budgets May Soften, Holiday Plans Strengthen, and Local Residents Expect a Voice in Tourism Management

Most key sentiment measures moved within a point this month, marking a relatively quiet wave. Right now 30.6 percent of American travelers say they are better off financially than they were a year ago, against 31.7 percent last month and 32.3 percent a year prior. Forward-looking confidence about their financial situation improving sits at 42.6 percent, essentially unmoved from last month. And 46.8 percent expect the United States to enter a recession within six months, against 48.5 percent both last month and a year ago. After three years of volatility in these measures, financial sentiment is holding steady. 

Forward-looking intent carries a softer version of the same signal. The share expecting to travel less for leisure over the next twelve months is 21.6 percent, up from 18.1 percent a year ago and the highest it has been; the share expecting to spend less is 21.5 percent, up from 19.2 percent. The optimistic side has not moved — 25.7 percent still expect to travel more, against 26.5 percent last year — so the balance of intent has narrowed but not reversed. Confidence is by no means collapsing, just the cushion around it is thinner.

The income spread beneath the average travel budget remains a critical component of the travel sentiment story: those earning $200,000 or more budget $13,152 for leisure travel, more than seven times the $1,798 budgeted by those earning under $49,000. That gradient repeats on every spending measure. Nearly half of top earners (48.2%) say now is a good time to spend, versus 19.0 percent of the lowest earners. Three-quarters (75.4%) call travel a high spending priority, versus 40.9 percent. And 72.5 percent consider travel a worthwhile investment even in a recession, versus 37.5 percent — a 35-point gap on what is fundamentally a question of belief rather than budget.

Gas is a geographic story more so than a demographic one. Those residing in rural areas (43.3%) and those in small towns (40.6%) are far more likely to cite gas prices than travelers in large cities (26.8%).

Time as a travel deterrent is a working-age story. Millennials (27.1%) and Gen Z (23.5%) are more than twice as likely as Boomers (10.0%) to say work kept them from traveling, while Boomers are the group most likely to report no travel deterrents at all (31.4%, against 15.2% of Millennials). For the younger half of the market, a well-placed long weekend may do more than even a discount.

A third of American travelers (33.3%) have used AI tools to help plan or prepare for a trip in the past twelve months, up from 25.3 percent last October — an 8-point jump and the highest reading since we began tracking this.

Loyalty currency matters to the same group. A majority of travelers (52.7%) call travel rewards programs important or extremely important to how they plan leisure travel, but among those earning $200,000 or more that rises to 72.1 percent, with 37.8 percent calling them extremely important. For an important share of travelers, points are not a nice-to-have at the margin; they are a primary input into where the trip goes.

For some segments, a meaningful share of travel demand is being held up by payment flexibility. Sixteen percent of travelers have used a Buy Now, Pay Later plan to book a trip, rising to 29.7 percent of Gen Z and 23.1 percent of Millennials against just 5.8 percent of Boomers. 

Americans have not turned against tourism in their own communities. Nearly three-quarters (73.2%) say it helps support local businesses, 61.4 percent say visitor spending supports community services, and 54.7 percent say it supports events they enjoy as residents. Just under half (49.5%) believe tourism makes their community a better place to live, and the more serious concerns remain minority positions: impact on natural areas (28.9%), too many tourists (23.8%), safety (22.4%) and community culture (21.2%).

The direction of tourism is the more important finding. Compared with a year ago, every negative sentiment towards tourism measure has grown, led by crowding and congestion, which rose from 41.9 percent to 51.7 percent. Concern about natural areas rose 6.0 points, too many tourists 5.1 points, safety 4.4 points and community culture 3.0 points. Over the same period, agreement that tourism supports community services fell from 64.1 percent to 61.4 percent and that it supports local events fell from 59.3 percent to 54.7 percent, while support for local businesses held flat. Residents still credit tourism with the economic benefit. They are crediting it with less of the quality-of-life benefit and charging it with more of the cost.

That pressure is sharpest among the youngest residents. Gen Z are more than twice as likely as Boomers to say there are too many tourists in their community (37.2% versus 14.6%), to worry about tourism’s impact on local culture (31.6% versus 13.0%) and to say tourists make their community less safe (30.9% versus 14.4%). The generation that will define community sentiment for the next twenty years is the one registering the most strain now.

Which is why the next number matters. A majority (53.4%) say it is important or essential that their official tourism organization consult local residents on how tourism develops in their community. Yet 44.8 percent feel they have little or no influence over it. Residents are not asking destination organizations to do less. They are asking to be in the room, and roughly half do not believe they are. Only 37.8 percent believe their community even has an official destination organization, and 49.2 percent say they are not at all familiar with CVBs or DMOs — so the invitation has to come from the organization. 

There is a strong case to make when that conversation happens. More than a third of Americans (36.9%) agree they moved to their current community primarily because they visited and loved it first, rising to 43.7 percent among those earning $100,000 to $199,999 and 44.1 percent among parents of school-aged children. Destination marketing is talent attraction and economic development, and that is the number that makes the argument to a city council and a neighborhood meeting alike.

Against the steady sentiment backdrop, four things are genuinely in motion — AI trip planning at an all-time high, business and group travel growing, the strongest holiday calendar since 2023, and a resident population feeling tourism’s costs more acutely than a year ago and expecting to be consulted about them.

Next month we will see whether the Thanksgiving holiday intent converted, and whether the midsummer reset in travel budgets begins to lift as the new year’s planning cycle opens. We will also return to the resident sentiment questions, which are a recurring part of this research.

Findings are drawn from the October 2026 wave of The State of the American Traveler, fielded October 15–28, 2026, among 4,000 adult American travelers, weighted to reflect the population of each U.S. Census region.