2LT National News

WASHINGTON, D.C. Forget bucket lists; this summer, it’s all about budget lists.

Amid economic uncertainty and a weaker dollar, Americans are growing cautious about travel. From flights and hotels to rental cars, many are delaying bookings or scaling back plans entirely, hoping to snag better deals closer to the date.

It’s a trend that’s starting to worry the travel industry.

Hotel bookings are flat or declining, and airline reservations are down—even though airfare has become cheaper. Big travel players like Delta, Marriott, and Booking Holdings have lowered or withdrawn their 2025 forecasts as U.S. demand softens. Airbnb also flagged that more users are waiting until the last minute to confirm trips.

That hesitation has left companies with less visibility on what the second half of the year will look like. Delta said in April it was too early to predict the full-year outlook given current economic uncertainty. United Airlines echoed that, warning that bookings could slow further.

“It’s very clear that consumers are waiting to make decisions, including for the summer,” said Southwest Airlines CEO Robert Jordan at a recent industry conference. He added that while demand is stable, it’s lower than expected earlier this year.

According to Flighthub, summer flight bookings in the U.S. are down 10 percent compared to last year despite a 7 percent drop in average prices. Long-haul flights are seeing even steeper discounts — with tickets to destinations like Sydney, Australia down 23 percent.

“You can’t keep an airline seat on the shelf in a warehouse,” said Steve Hafner, CEO of Kayak. “If you don’t fill that seat tomorrow and the airplane flies, it’s gone.”

Hotel bookings are showing the same pattern. “They’ve actually fallen off, and it gets weaker like a month out,” said Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian. “By the time you get to that month, it recovers.”

CoStar data shows bookings in major U.S. cities are flat-to-down. Room rates are only expected to rise by 1.3 percent in 2025 — down from a 1.8 percent increase in 2024. “We’re not getting that crazy pricing power we got in the early days of the recovery,” said Marriott CEO Anthony Capuano.

Some hotels are already sweetening deals, offering free nights or special packages to drive bookings. “That’s what Jackie Lafferty is hoping for,” the story notes. The Los Angeles PR director has shifted her plans from Hawaii or Florida to a California-based vacation. “By the time we broke down the cost of the flights, the hotel and the rental car, it looked expensive, it felt unreasonable,” she said.

Meanwhile, the weakening dollar is nudging travelers to stay closer to home. In March, a Deloitte survey showed Americans planned to increase summer travel budgets by 13 percent. But by April, they were budgeting roughly the same as last year.

“The dollar is just not going as far, and I think people are starting to realize that,” said Chirag Panchal, CEO of luxury travel firm Ensuite Collection. His U.S.-based clients are now favoring Canada or the Caribbean over Europe.

Rachel Cabeza, a New Jersey-based actor and fitness instructor, sums it up: “We might go international at the end of the summer. If we do, it will be last-minute and spur of the moment based on cheaper flights.” For now, her only confirmed trip is a local getaway to Martha’s Vineyard.