The State of the American Traveler in October 2024—Holiday Travel, Election (non) Impact, Increasing Travel Volume and Budgets

IMPORTANT: These findings are brought to you from our independent research, which is not sponsored, conducted, or influenced by any advertising or marketing agency. The key findings presented below represent data from over 4,000 American travelers collected in September 2024.

Anticipated annual travel budgets soar to another record high as Americans plan to increase their trip volume over the next year. When it comes to the upcoming holidays, more than 40 percent of American travelers have trips specifically planned for these. Thankfully, despite being a national election year, it does not appear that politics will pose a widespread challenge to family holiday time.

Financial Sentiment Holding Steady 

• 2024 continues to demonstrate relative stability compared to prior years regarding American travelers' financial status and outlook. This month, 33.0 percent said that their household is currently better or much better off financially compared to one year ago, keeping within the one-in-three range that has held fast since Q4 2023. This tracks well ahead of the same period last year (+ 4.6 percentage points). Also seen last month, this financial health is largely driven by Millennials, with over four in ten of the former (44.9%) saying they are better off financially now. American travelers’ financial outlook for the year ahead also closely tracks with the rest of the year to date, with 47.9 percent saying they expect to be better or much better off financially a year from now—on par with last month. Notably, over six in ten of both Gen Z (64.1%) and Millennial (63.0%) travelers said they feel their finances will have improved in a year while only one in three (33.8%) Baby Boomer travelers were similarly optimistic. In other good news around American travelers' financial sentiment, expectations for a U.S. economic recession in the near term is at a low of 37.9 percent, down over 14 points from last year.
• Likewise, travel spending attitudes hold steady in 2024, with minimal fluctuations month over month. In this most recent wave of The State of the American Traveler, 34.7 percent of American travelers said that now is a good or very good time to spend on travel, a slight (-0.4pp) dip compared to the previous month, but an increase of +6.6 percentage points above the same time last year. One indicator of a positive shift coming out of all this stability: this month's maximum anticipated 12-month leisure travel spend reached another record-breaking $5,734, outpacing last month's record of $5,413, suggesting strong leisure travel spending intent for 2025. In particular, this is once again led by Baby Boomer travelers ($7,039), while Millennial ($4,891) and Gen X ($5,636) travelers also reported strong spending expectations. Gen Z travelers ($2,739) lag behind the other generations in anticipated spending. It is worth pointing out that financial optimism is weakest amongst Baby Boomers, but they are not only the generational cohort with the highest near-term leisure travel spending expectations, they are also the most likely to say that now is a good time to spend on travel (38.3%). Conversely, while Millennials have the strongest reported financial sentiment, followed by Gen Z, these youngest generational cohorts had the lowest expected leisure travel spend for the next year. This suggests a more nuanced landscape of marketing opportunities for destinations and travel brands.

Americans Expect to Increase Their Trip Volume in the Next Year

• After a strong summer season of overnight trips among American travelers, this month saw similar travel volume for overnight trips compared to the same time last year, with just under half (48.7%) reporting an overnight leisure trip in the past month, a slightly lower 45.0 percent said they took an overnight trip to visit friends or relatives in the past month. Day trips taken in the past month are also tracking the same volume as last September, after a slight spike in June and July. Turning next to the number of leisure trips American travelers expect to take in the next 12 months, this month they reported an all-time high of 3.7 leisure trips anticipated in the coming year, with 90.4 percent of Americans expecting to take at least one leisure trip. With the average number of anticipated leisure trips trending upward and the percentage of American travelers who expect to take at least one leisure trip remaining steady, this is indicative of American travelers increasing their trip volumes over the next year. This month 28.5 percent of American travelers said they anticipate traveling more for leisure in the coming year compared to last year. Note that younger travelers are somewhat more likely to say they expect to travel for leisure more in the next year compared to last year.

Holiday Season Travel Plans are Off to a Strong Start—Politics Not Anticipated to be a Massive Disrupter 

• With the holiday season upon us, this month we asked American travelers which of the impending holidays they currently have trips planned. Currently, 43.4 percent of American travelers have trips planned specifically for upcoming holidays. The largest proportion said they have trips planned for Christmas (29.5%), followed by Thanksgiving (23.5.%). More than one-in-ten (11.4%) have trips currently planned for New Year's. Looking at who has trips planned for Christmas or Thanksgiving, for both holidays these travelers are most likely to be Millennials, parents of school-aged children, and those who live in large cities. 
•  With the upcoming presidential election, Future Partners also explored whether there is any expectation for holiday tensions around political disagreements with family members this holiday season. Only one in five (21.7%) American travelers think politics will create challenges around family holiday time this year, while the majority (60.8%) believe this will be unlikely. Interestingly, Millennials are much more likely to anticipate politics derailing family get-togethers during the holidays this year (29.4%), while Baby Boomers were the least likely (11.1%).

Podcasts are Most Popular with Millennials while Baby Boomers Continue to Gravitate towards Email

• Taking a closer look at the digital marketing channels where American travelers are most receptive to learning about new destinations, websites found via a search engine (37.5%) and email (35.4%) continue to be the top channels to reach American travelers with this type of messaging. Notably, Facebook had been vying for the top two spots throughout much of 2023 but has fallen decidedly below organic website searches and email for 2024 year-to-date (27.9%), with online content such as articles and blogs (26.5%) tracking closely. With just over one in five American travelers saying they would be receptive to destination marketing on Instagram (20.9%), Meta's two main social media platforms remain the key digital marketing channels for American travelers. That being said, we continue to see key generational differences, with older cohorts being much less likely to be reachable on most digital marketing channels with the exceptions of organic website searches and email while Gen Z and Millennial travelers are much more receptive to marketing on social media platforms, particularly Instagram and TikTok.
• Future Partners has tracked podcast consumption among American travelers since October 2022. The share of American travelers who listen to podcasts regularly has held relatively flat at about one in three, with this month reporting 32.4 percent. Millennial travelers (44.7%) are the most likely of the generational groups to say they listen to podcasts regularly. Among the income breakouts, we found that higher-income travelers (i.e., $200K+) are the most likely (38.0%), while lower-income travelers (i.e., <$50K) are the least likely (26.8%). Looking at the most popular podcast genres, while entertainment/pop culture has consistently been the top podcast genre since spring 2023, there is no clear runner-up genre. Instead, comedy, news/politics, health/fitness, true crime, and sports podcasts comprise the mix of secondarily most popular genres.