DECEMBER EDITORIAL

Caution necessary this holiday season

Posted Dec. 15, 2021

By The Highlander Staff

This year’s holiday season has just begun and people are jumping at the chance to get together with friends and family, though the safety concerns seem to be pointing towards staying home.

It’s estimated that over 53.4 million people took to the air, roads, and rails for Thanksgiving and that roughly 150 million, in the U.S. alone, will be traveling over the winter holidays. Sixty-eight percent of people traveling haven’t traveled since March of last year, and around 45% of those people say that they won’t change their plans regardless of the health risks.

"Although the demand for travel is high, winter holiday travel in the coming year will remain unpredictable," said Rajeev Shrivastava, CEO of Visitors Coverage, to USA Today.

This year’s air travel bookings suggest that this year will be one of the busiest in the last five non-pandemic years. Christmas reservation volume across the U.S. is up 469% compared with 2020 and is currently 157% higher than 2019 volume. This means that most high tourist destinations, like the Oregon Coast and Portland, will be crowded, full of people who may or may not be taking precautions.

While a majority of travelers this year are taking precautions, such as being fully vaccinated, planning on cooking themselves or take-out, driving themselves to and from locations, limiting their exposure, and doing activities that don’t involve large crowds, there are still some not taking the recommended precautions. This is a major concern this year, people have no idea who is next to them on public transportation and this can put them in danger.

The CDC has and continues to push those unvaccinated or immunocompromised to not travel and remain home, but the statistics of travel this year show that many are ignoring this, at least in the U.S. More and more countries and travel agencies are limiting unvaccinated visitors. Many agencies are calling a person’s vaccination card the “new passport.”

"If you have chronic medical conditions or are immunocompromised due to any medications or for any other reason, it may be a good idea to remain at home," said Jim Evans, an emergency medicine physician and senior medical consultant, Allianz Partners.

The Omicron variant is another reason to be concerned for travel in the upcoming weeks, with this variant being more contagious and less impacted by vaccination many officials are calling for all travel to be limited to only close family. Though neither the travelers nor agencies seem to be making changes to their plans. With agencies like Alaska Airlines and Hyatt making limited-time offers for the holiday break, a flight to Florida costing less than $100, and room rates being lowered in highly frequented areas, people have even more reason to travel. The research firm STR found that U.S. hotel occupancy, for days Nov. 28 - Dec. 4, was up 2% from the previous week which was at 53.0%. Many hotels expect to be near capacity by Christmas.

Vice president of global public relations at Virtuoso (a luxury travel network) Misty Belles has noticed that most canceled or put on hold bookings have been to destinations that have already closed their borders due to the Omicron variant. Travel over winter break has mostly remained untouched. Though, she does mention that departures within the next week are most likely to be impacted. Travelers seem to want to wait to see if their destination in impacted or has high case rates before canceling their trip.

What’s agreed upon by both travelers, professionals, and travel agencies is that people will be traveling this year. This will be one of the first times since quarantine started that a large number of people will be traveling, and many are unsure of what the outcome will be. Though many are concerned that this holiday season will be filled with outbreaks and quarantine restrictions being reinforced.