Right-sized American summer: 2025 Deloitte summer travel survey
Americans intend to travel at a healthy clip, but after developments in the economy in early April, many scaled back on spend increases
Kate Ferrara
Eileen Crowley
Matthew Usdin
Matt Soderberg
Maggie Rauch
Upasana Naik
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Deloitte’s ConsumerSignals showed a year-on-year decline in Americans’ sense of financial well-being in April 20251 and a bigger month-on-month dip. In these circumstances, it would be understandable if more planned to forego travel this summer. Instead, 53% plan to take leisure vacations, an increase from 48% in 2024,2 making this year one of the highest-incidence summers since the pandemic. Trip frequency is up as well, as many add more quick getaways to their calendars.
Across two fieldings of Deloitte’s summer travel survey—in the last week of March and in the second week of April—Americans held on to the basics. Travel incidence, number of trips, and the length of their longest trip remained similar.
However, over a two-week period, Americans’ vacation plans changed in one big way: the amount of money they plan to spend. The average summer travel budget was set to grow 21% year on year, as of late March. By early April, this figure dropped to 13% (figure 1).
In summer 2024, fewer Americans traveled, and those who did planned to spend enthusiastically to maximize their experiences. This year’s trends appear poised to run in the opposite direction—more travelers and more trips, but a more frugal approach.
The more frugal approach will likely be felt unevenly across the travel industry. Rather than shy away from any categories in huge numbers, travelers surveyed are making individual choices to fit their trips into smaller budgets. And plans might change with further economic developments, or at the time of bookings, and even in destination. But there are a few adjustments that appear to be trending: more driving instead of flying, fewer international trips and destination resort stays, and reduced spend on certain in-destination experiences (figure 2).
In the post-pandemic years, leisure travel has benefited from a strong prioritization of discovery and new experiences. While it seems that many still place a high value on travel, this summer may be more challenging than recent ones. And although this report explores only Americans’ travel plans, government data indicates recent weakness in inbound travel. Non-citizen arrivals to the United States were down 10% year on year in March, including a 14% drop in European visitors.3
Travel providers should plan to be nimble this summer. Timely and targeted deals and offers can help reach travelers at the right moment and attract any incremental dollars they may be willing to spend. And delivering memorable experiences with minimal fuss can help keep travel high on the list of priorities in the year ahead.
Methodology
This report relies on a survey fielded to a representative sample of Americans between March 26 and April 1, 2025, and again between April 7 and April 9. The first fielding reached 1,794 travelers, and the second reached 1,064 travelers.
by
Kate Ferrara
Eileen Crowley
Matthew Usdin
Matt Soderberg
Maggie Rauch
Upasana Naik
Cover image by: Jaime Austin; Adobe Stock
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