Everyone seems to be traveling.
Data shows that people are traveling more frequently and for longer periods this year, with many planning big bucket list style trips this year.
But this is not the reality for everyone.
Another group of people is quietly coming out of the pandemic with little or no interest in travel.
Places with the highest ‘Never a tourist’
A survey of 16,000 adults in 15 countries by the global intelligence agency Morning Consult found that Asia had the highest percentage of those who said they would never travel again. .
About 15% of South Korean respondents and 14% of Chinese respondents said they would never travel again. Morning Consult’s “Current State of Travel & Hospitality” Report Published in August.
North America is not far behind, with 14% of American respondents and 11% of Mexican respondents saying the same.
However, no country is as reluctant to travel as Japan, where about 35% of respondents said they would not travel again.
The survey asked about “all types of leisure travel,” according to Morning Consult travel and hospitality analyst Lindsey Roeschk, and did not differentiate between domestic and international travel plans.
Respondents were surveyed twice this year, in April and July. Meanwhile, confidence in travel increased among other Japanese respondents. This includes those who said they plan to travel in the next 3 months (+7 points) and her next 12 months (+4 points).
But in both surveys, “the number of ‘never traveled’ … stayed the same in Japan,” Roeschke said.
Despite rising travel intentions, Japan’s fares lag far behind other countries, including those in North Asia, according to the report.
About 45% of Japanese respondents said they plan to travel next year, compared to 65% in China and 66% in South Korea.
In contrast, 77% of German respondents said they plan to travel in the next 12 months.
“I don’t want to go abroad”
It can be said that the number of Japanese traveling abroad has decreased due to the pandemic, but I think the impact of the weaker yen was greater.
Tetsuya Hanada
Managing Director, Tabimori Co., Ltd.
According to the Japan National Tourism Organization, about 386,000 Japanese travelers traveled abroad in August.
Hideki Furuya, a professor at Toyo University in Japan who studies tourist behavior, said the culture’s “preference for risk aversion” was one reason.
He said peer pressure also keeps travelers closer to home if they are at high risk of contracting Covid-19.
Tetsuya Hanada, managing director of food and travel company Tabimori, said he believes finances are an even bigger factor.
“I would say that the pandemic has reduced the number of Japanese people who decide to travel abroad, but I think the impact of the weaker yen has been bigger,” he told CNBC Travel.
There is no better place than home
Sooner or later, we expect to return to pre-2020 international travel demand.
Hideki Furuya
Professor at Toyo University
After the rapid increase in overseas travel in the 1970s and 1980s, The number of Japanese traveling abroad has stagnated significantly. Since the mid-1990s, according to statistics from the Japan National Tourism Organization.
The number of Japanese who traveled abroad in 2000 and 2017 was roughly the same, about 18 million.
Furuya pointed out that “the lack of language barriers and consecutive holidays is one of the reasons why people prefer domestic travel,” adding that “the working environment makes it difficult to take paid holidays.”
Japanese passports are often cited as one of the most powerful countries in the world, yet less than one in four Japanese had a passport in 2019.
Bellows Mehri | Afp | Getty Images
He also cited the attractions of Japan’s nature, history and culture as further motivations for staying closer to home.
This will put further pressure on popular destinations for Japanese tourists, namely Taiwan, South Korea and South Korea. Hawaii.
However, Hanada said that given time, the Japanese are likely to travel again.
“Japanese people are easily swept away by the majority, but this sentiment will change in five years.
Furuya expects it won’t take too long.
“After seeing and hearing how active Westerners are, we expect demand for international travel to return to pre-2020 sooner or later,” he said.
others are at home
Outside of Japan, other travelers also say they’ve lost their passion for travel.
The British artist known as Miles Takes told CNBC Travel, “It looks like international travel is still some time away.”
“I used to love traveling and earlier this year I traveled from London to Singapore and Poland,” he said. However, “both of these trips caused anxiety, which then got worse.”
He stopped traveling due to a combination of Covid, travel disruptions, and having a medically vulnerable partner.
Singaporean Daniel Chua says he’s not in a rush to travel “for a variety of reasons.”
But Covid isn’t one of them, he said.
“I’m not afraid of the virus,” said Daniel Chua, a Singaporean shown here in Edinburgh, Scotland. said he didn’t want to travel much.
He said a business trip to Europe in June exposed him to “chaos” of flight delays and staff shortages.
Chua also said that sustainability is a disincentive to travel, calling it “a core belief in my work and personal life.”
However, he admitted that he was surrounded by traveling people.
“Why I don’t travel, not to burst their bubble, or be the pooper of the party in this celebration,” he said. .”
Chua said he believes there are more people who feel the same way he does, but they travel because of peer pressure and FOMO, or “fear of missing out.”
Neither affect him, he said.
“I have traveled a lot,” he said. “Right now, there is no country in the world that I absolutely have to go to.”
