As I wrote about last month, summer vacation spending will jump $5 billion according to the annual Vacation Confidence Index released by Allianz Global Assistance. However, that’s not the whole story given the string of recent global events. The majority of Americans (86%) are concerned about terrorist attacks occurring while on vacation, prompting many to make major changes to their travel plans.
Not shockingly, the region Americans are most concerned will be the site of an attack is the Middle East (75%), followed by Europe (66%) and Africa (63%).
With recent terrorist attacks in Istanbul, Israel, Paris, Brussels, and Nice, almost a quarter of Americans (22%) say that the fear of further violence has influenced their vacation planning in some way; whether that be cancelling (6%); changing locations (5%), travel dates (4%), mode of transportation (4 percent), local tours (4%) or accommodations (3%); or by purchasing travel insurance (3%).
As Americans age, the fear of terror attacks happening while traveling to different regions of the world increases significantly. That trend, however, is reversed for travel within the U.S. and Canada, where millennials aged 18 to 34 have the greatest fear of an attack happening on home soil (57%) compared to generation X (51%) and baby boomers (48%).
Those Americans influenced by an act of terrorism are more likely to be traveling within the U.S. or Canada (50%), likely due to the higher number of domestic vs. international vacations planned. Internationally, Americans who have changed their plans were most likely to be visiting Europe (42%), followed by Asia (29%), Latin America (26%), Australia and the South Pacific (26%), the Middle East (22%) or Africa (21%).
An analysis of flight bookings showed a 10 percent overall increase in travel to Europe during the summer, despite recent acts of terror in Brussels, Istanbul and France. While these targeted destinations saw a significant decrease or virtually no change in U.S. travelers visiting during the upcoming summer, Europe as a whole recorded an overall increase to 515,676 travelers in 2016 compared to 471,823 in 2015.
“What we’re seeing is that the American traveler is a complex demographic that shares common fears and concerns, but deviate greatly on where they find those fears and how they face them,” said Daniel Durazo, director of communications at Allianz Global Assistance USA. “But we’re pleased to see that whatever those differences are, one thing that remains consistent is that they are finding ways to follow their passion of seeing the world despite the challenges that come with traveling in a time of terror.”
I happen to agree with Dan, in that I will not be altering my travel plans this summer or for the rest of the year. Included in my upcoming travels are trips to the U.S. west coast and south plus the volatile regions of Central Africa and the Middle East. I hope to add Socotra, an island of Yemen, to my massive itinerary but it doesn’t look likely because of the current safety and transportation situation in the failed state. I have no interest in risking my life to visit.
Methodology
These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of Allianz from May 3 to 10, 2016. For the survey, a sample of n=2,007 Americans were interviewed online via Ipsos’s American online panel. The precision of Ipsos online surveys is measured using a Bayesian credibility interval. In this case, with a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within ± 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had all Americans been polled. The margin of error will be larger within sub-groupings of the survey population.
Disclaimer: I work as an ambassador for Allianz Global Assistance (AGA Service Company) and receive financial compensation.
I would never let terrorists alter my travels. Don’t let the bastards win even a little bit!
Nobody should change travel plans because of terrorism. An attack can happen anywhere at any time. If we have learned anything with this nonsense it’s that. Live your life, that’s the way to defeat terrorism.
I wonder if there were a terror attack and you wanted to cancel your plans to go there say 2 months later, if travel insurance would even apply — usually I would think they’d exclude all that stuff away as a voluntary change in plans (I’m sure they’d cover something with a couple weeks of an attack, but even that probably has a tricky definition about how many people have to die or something before it’s sufficiently serious to allow a change in plans).
Hi Carina,
Many travel insurance policies include terrorism as a covered reason to cancel or interrupt your trip. If there is a terrorist incident at your destination in the 30 days before your arrival, you may be covered as long as there wasn’t an incident within the 30 days before you bought your policy.
Read your policy for details and call your insurance provider with questions.
Thanks!
When does a terrorist attack stop? This is really alarming and hassles to every traveler and to the country nearby.
It is so hard to change your travel plans when the unexpected can always happen. Anywhere. You can’t escape it, so you should just enjoy life!