Road Trips Continue to be Most Robust Form of Travel
Location data company Arrivalist is predicting slightly lower travel volume this Labor Day holiday due to the impact on travel from the Delta variant of Covid-19. Labor Day weekend road trip volume will be 10 percent lower than 2019 and will miss 2020 numbers by 1 percent. Arrivalist predicts the impact will be larger on air travel than road trips. Still, an estimated 42.9 million Americans will hit the road over the holiday, according to data from Arrivalist's Daily Travel Index. Labor Day weekend road trip volume will be 10 percent lower than 2019 and will miss 2020 numbers by 1 percent.
"Road trips remain the most resilient form of travel in the pandemic," says Arrivalist Founder and CEO Cree Lawson. "Considering the increased case count, it's surprising how resilient travel by private car has been. Americans are still hitting the road to have fun, see attractions, and visit family and friends at the same rate as last year, when cases were falling."
The Daily Travel Index is a daily measure of road trip activity taken by residents of all 50 U.S. states, with volume indexed against the average daily volume of 2019 travelers. It was designed as a free online resource available on Arrivalist's website to provide the travel industry with insights to help plot its path to recovery during the Covid-19 pandemic. Site visitors can compare visitation in 2021 to activity from the same period in 2019, not just the timeframe when travel slowed to a virtual standstill in 2020. Additionally, a customized Daily Travel Index is available to clients, which allows them to compare activity in their market to a nationwide index.
Methodology
Arrivalist's methodology is based on a representative balanced panel of GPS signals representing road trips taken specifically in cars (excluding travel by air). A trip is measured as one where the user has traveled a minimum of 50 miles and spent a minimum of two hours at the destination. Commuter travel or other frequently repeated trips—i.e., cargo deliveries or other reoccurring activities—are excluded from the Daily Travel Index.