What We’re Seeing: Emerging Visitor Trends for Summer 2023

Numerous forecasts for the summer travel season are boasting “booming business,” record airline passenger numbers, and bustling destinations.

But for many U.S. destinations, these headlines are bewildering. Since early 2023, Zartico has heard from destination partners who are seeing noticeably lower visitation and lodging demand during the first half of the year. These observations first surfaced with traditionally over-traveled destinations, then spread to other areas, including gateways to state and national parks. So what’s the real story?

Zartico’s Data Science team analyzed aggregated spending data and mobile device counts to identify emerging trends. They have worked alongside our Strategic Advising team to analyze both resident and visitation behavior that tell a more nuanced story of what’s happening in the travel industry.

Here are the top takeaways from our analysis:

1. National averages paint a misleading picture. 

As is often the case in complex data sets, the average is not representative of individuals. 

We see significant regional differences in the strategies destinations have adopted. Some destinations have cut hotel rates to preserve occupancy. Others have kept their hotel rates high and let occupancy slide. These strategies tend to be localized to reflect the availability of workers, local economic conditions, and, we expect, some degree of hotels copying the strategies of others in their community to avoid drifting too far from the herd. 

Collectively, we interpret these moves as strategic attempts to drive strong performance from a softening economy, high airfares, and a world with COVID travel restrictions lifted, allowing travelers to have their choice of global destinations.  

2. Not all destinations experienced the “typical” post-COVID bounce back. 

The widely cited narrative of post-COVID visitation — a dip immediately following the most stringent restrictions, followed by a rebound to record heights due to “revenge travel” — was observed in some destinations. At least anecdotally, this was a common occurrence in Western destinations with outdoor spaces. But this was far from a universal experience.

Urban destinations have seen a tepid recovery with some destinations still in decline, though some of the general trends may have been masked by seasonal variability. In our data, we see a cohort of destinations flying under the radar, with strong performance despite not having national name recognition. Will these destinations become buzzy new travel destinations for the years to come?

Those destinations who experienced the greatest spike in post-COVID visitation were also highly profiled as being “overcrowded” or “drought-stricken” — and an unlucky few were even hand-selected as places tourists should avoid. This negative publicity appears to have created headwinds for these destinations heading into 2023.  

3. Record revenues masked falling visitor counts in 2021-22.

When we look at visitation and spending data more generally and control for seasonal variability, the picture that emerges in many destinations is not one of record post-pandemic visitation. Instead what we see is a steady decline in visitor counts that stretches all the way through 2021 and up to the fourth quarter of 2022.

At the same time that visitor counts were declining, visitor spend saw a dramatic increase through 2021 and 2022, remaining high through the end of the year before beginning to stabilize toward the beginning of 2023.

As we turned the calendar to 2023, both visitation and spending were at a low point relative to recent years. This dip coincided with many destinations’ slower travel seasons, which may have allowed it to go unnoticed until the ramp up to spring and summer visitation seasons failed to meet the levels of the previous two years.

Inflation likely contributed to high revenues in 2021 and 2022 that masked lower visitor counts, and factors like labor shortages, slowing construction, and concentrated seasonal peaks brought destinations close to capacity, even if visitor counts were declining. 

Now that inflation is cooling, average spend is no longer increasing at a rate to maintain the higher spending totals. And because this shift happened when visitation was near its lowest, the resulting impact to revenue felt even more significant.

4. Residents — and cooling “Zoom Towns” — are key contributors

Another significant factor in increased spending through 2021 and 2022 was an uptick in post-pandemic relocation.

The data shows strong resident increases in many destinations, especially those that serve as gateway communities to outdoor recreation and natural resources. Part of the “Zoom Town” effect is characterized by residents behaving much like the visitors in actions and spending patterns, a typical observation when relocating and getting to know a new home.

What we then see toward the end of 2022 is a slowing, or even a decrease, of resident spend that coincides with the stabilization in visitor spend.

5. Where we go from here: Recommendations for destination leaders

With high interest rates, the restarting of student loan payments, and the lingering impact of inflation, discretionary spending may continue to be limited, which could dampen a return to the higher levels of visitation seen in prior years. 

However, there are green shoots emerging. We are beginning to see signs of stabilization and perhaps even a very gradual increase in total visitor spending driven by a slow recovery in visitor volume trends. This, along with other indicators — including a reduction in average visitor spend — could be at least partially attributable to the slowing of inflation. That said, this could come at the cost of overall revenue since visitation is still at a low point overall.   

We recommend destinations keep a close eye on changing trends in their destinations, listening to the feedback they are getting from businesses and monitoring their data for winds of change. 

Avoid fixating on any one number, like occupancy or ADR, park visits or website visits as a metric for success. A destination is complex and differing regional strategies tend to make one number look good, while other metrics suffer. Having access to a more complete picture of your destination’s health will help you make better assessments. After all, your physician doesn’t only take your pulse or blood pressure. It is one of many signals evaluated for a diagnosis. 

Agility and responsiveness are key. Carefully monitoring and optimizing your ad spending around visitor spending and visitation can help you notice opportunities earlier than waiting for annual reports. Breaking your visitors into different segments, by market or behavioral characteristics, and monitoring those segments in real-time will help you understand greater nuances in the opportunities presented by differing types of visitors.

Alexandra Pasi, Ph.D., is Zartico’s Senior Director of Data Science. She holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Baylor University and  has published, presented, and worked in diverse fields including machine learning, finance, oncology, data science, and pure mathematics. She is passionate about creating new mathematical frameworks that offer real and actionable insight and provide solid foundations for new technologies.

Photo by Spencer Davis on Unsplash.