In early August, I reported on the results of a survey of wealthy U.S. consumers I conducted in partnership with Chandler Mount and his Affluent Consumer Research Company. Among our key findings: Demand for luxury travel was taking off, consumers were splashing out for bigger and further-flung trips, and younger folks use a different set of yardsticks to gauge their satisfaction with a travel brand.

Remember what the travel industry looked like one year ago? Travelers were hitting the road in droves, spending their ballooning savings, and satisfying their long-suppressed desire to travel. A new variant of COVID was spreading rapidly. And labor shortages among travel suppliers were causing disruption and dissatisfaction with how service was being delivered. Sounds a lot like Summer 2022, doesn’t it? Of course, there are many differences between what’s happening right now and a year ago. Many of those differences are clear from the results of a survey I just completed in partnership with Affluent Consumer Research Company, headed by Chandler Mount.

Two years ago, at the peak of the pandemic, it seemed nearly impossible that cruise lines would escape the cloud created by COVID, darkening their reputation in health and safety. Today, however, pent-up demand and skyrocketing hotel rates have primed the market for cruise lines to gain market share exponentially. Through better bundled values, high-end service, and adaptive health and safety protocols, the trajectory of cruise lines is incredibly well on the rise. 

Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write: Greetings from Saudi Arabia! I am visiting this unexpected destination to look at tourism development opportunities in Riyadh, Al-’Ula, Jeddah, and elsewhere. Saudi is fascinating, stunning, hospitable, and, from my Western perspective, very surprising. There are obviously very serious human rights concerns to take into consideration. But the country’s efforts to slowly open itself up to tourism has me thinking quite a bit about the future of our industry.

Normally at this time of year I send you the results of our annual Pulse of the Industry Survey. This year, well, let’s just say that the pulse is a little bit hard to read at the moment. Once the patient stabilizes a bit (sorry to torture the metaphor) and there’s more clarity in the marketplace, we’ll survey our industry peers to understand their feelings about business and where it’s going. In the meantime, I have been speaking to a number of travel advisors about the current state of affairs and thought it worth sharing a few of the common threads I’m hearing.