Emily Reeve and her husband often spend Thanksgiving in Hawaii, Florida or Disneyland, but not this 12 months.
“I even have a toddler now and I’m frightened about being in a potentially volatile situation should we be traveling post-election,” said Reeve, 32.
The couple doesn’t have family near their home in Portland, Oregon, in order that they prefer to skip town for the November holiday. But they are saying they’re staying put this time to avoid getting caught in an airport or a preferred destination “and suddenly facing riots or looting, etc., since the people in the world aren’t completely satisfied with the election end result.”
Anxiety across the 2024 vote is causing some consumers to rethink where, when and with whom to travel, industry experts and travel agents say. Federal authorities, meanwhile, say their security procedures are sound heading into Election Day, Nov. 5.
Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian recently told CNBC he expected consumers to take “just a little little bit of a pause” within the weeks across the election, because the carrier has seen prior to now. “People prefer to be home in the course of the election period. They don’t desire to be out traveling,” he said. “I do not think they wish to be spending money until they understand what is going on to occur.”
While the pandemic upended travel in the course of the 2020 vote, Delta also saw demand flag within the run-up to the 2016 ballot before bookings rebounded in subsequent weeks. United Airlines executives said this month that they expect an analogous pattern and “don’t think there’s anything to be surprised by.”
Still, 64% of U.S. adults said they might avoid traveling within the U.S. out of concerns about unrest, depending on who wins, in response to a recent poll by the travel site the Vacationer. A few quarter said they’d stay home provided that Vice President Kamala Harris is elected, while just 16% said they’d hold off provided that former President Donald Trump wins; 24% said they’re staying put irrespective of the end result, and nearly 36% said the end result would not affect their plans.
Businesses are also on alert, said Kelly Soderlund, a spokesperson for the net business travel management company Navan. Its domestic flight bookings are down 19% for the week of the election compared with the identical week last 12 months. Bookings for the next week, though, are 42% higher than the preceding seven days and 82% higher than the equivalent week a 12 months ago.
“Once we refer to customers about their biggest concerns regarding their travel program, managing duty of care — the duty employers must keep employees secure — ranks near the highest,” Soderlund said.
The 2024 race has been deeply polarizing, with GOP lawsuits over voting procedures already mounting in battleground states and the Republican ticket repeatedly hedging their remarks concerning the 2020 race and their willingness to simply accept the present one’s end result. Officials are tightening security at polling places and surrounding each campaigns, after two assassination attempts on Trump and widespread reports of threats toward poll employees.
The Transportation Security Administration “at all times stays vigilant on this heightened global threat environment,” a spokesperson said, adding that federal air marshals “proceed to perform critical in-flight security missions” and other duties to maintain travelers secure. “We prepare for all contingencies and employ multiple layers of security which can be seen and unseen.”
Flyers may notice tighter airport security in coming weeks, said Jeffrey Price, who runs the aviation security consultancy Leading Edge Strategies. Along with more uniformed officers, “there might also be a mix of plainclothes law-enforcement personnel amongst the passengers,” he said.
Even so, 38% of U.S. adults plan to travel this holiday season, up from 34% last 12 months, the research firm MMGY Travel Intelligence present in a recent survey. Concerns about steeper travel costs have abated, with 61% of travelers frightened about them this season compared with 68% last 12 months, in response to the consulting firm PwC. That has left more room for political jitters to creep into consumers’ travel considerations, travel agents say.
“A couple of months ago, many families were splurging on vacations and spending greater than they typically would,” said Sonia Bhagwan, who owns the Portland-based agency Dreaming of Sun and has previously booked Reeve’s Thanksgiving trips. More recently, “the driving factor is the uncertainty around what the economy could also be like after the election,” she said.
That is partly why Olivia MacLeod Dwinell, 64, and her husband Ross Dwinell, 74, were in Europe this month.
“Whatever the end result, it’ll be a bit rocky for a time post-election,” said Dwinell. Their visit to London and France was Ross’s first trip abroad, and “the thought that we might need been stranded overseas due to domestic tumult was enough to speed up our plans,” said Dwinell. “We’re not young, and we’re less intrepid than prior to now.”
Kimberly Kracun, owner of Destinations by Kimberly in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, said she was recently approached to book a cruise for a multigenerational family. But two members of the group work for the federal government, “and so they are frightened about their jobs and possible furloughs after the election,” she said. Current government funding lasts only through Dec. 20, and the specter of a shutdown looms if the lame-duck Congress cannot hash out an end-of-year deal.
“They’ve now decided to attend one other 12 months for the holiday,” Kracun said.
Worries about traveling aside, some persons are anxious about what might occur once they finally meet up with relatives.
Only about 22% of travelers expect that politics could spark conflict during family get-togethers this 12 months, in response to a recent survey by the tourism market research firm Future Partners. But that rate rises to around 38% of Gen Z and 29% of millennial travelers, compared with just 11% of Baby Boomers.
Chirag Panchal, the founding father of Dallas-based Ensuite Collection, a luxury travel agency, has a client who often books Thanksgiving trips with relations opened up across the country. “But this 12 months is different,” he said.
After some tense political conversations inside the family, the youngsters voiced concerns about friction at holiday gatherings, Panchal said his client told him. So the parents are staying put in Dallas while their kids make separate plans.
For now, “they’ve canceled going anywhere as a family,” he said.
