Mentions were down 65% in July 2020 compared to the average for the previous three years, while mentions in April, May, and June were down 48%, 44%, and 37% respectively.

On top of the decrease in mentions, the vacation conversation in 2020 is more likely to be negative in tone than it was last year. 38% of posts were categorized as having a negative sentiment, driven in part by conversation shaming people for going away despite the crisis.

On the other hand, there’s a significant proportion of conversation our emotion analysis classifies as joyful. There are still plenty of people sharing their vacation experiences online with joyous abandon. Using our Image Insights capabilities, we were able to see that beaches, the wilderness, and mountains were key scenes in vacation photos shared online. There are notably fewer people sharing pictures of their busy city breaks (which could be far more susceptible to shaming).

Travel confidence

Travel shaming could be one reason not to travel (or, at least, not to talk about travelling). But confidence in travel safety is obviously also a big factor in consumer decision making around vacations in 2020.

Confidence in travel has been falling for some time. One of our Qriously surveys, conducted between July 6 and July 13, asked 4,093 people in Australia, China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the US how their travel behavior had changed, if at all, as a result of the outbreak.

It found 36% of respondents had either cancelled or didn’t book a vacation because of Covid-19. This marked a decrease of four percentage points in comparison to the first time we asked back in May.

In a more recent survey we asked 4,266 respondents from the same eight countries, “once the outbreak has ended globally, do you think you are more likely to travel internationally or domestically?”. The results are a little more cheerful for the travel industry than those above, but they’re not great.

We found that, even when the outbreak has theoretically ended, only 26% of consumers think they’ll travel both internationally and domestically. That figure is rising, but it’s not exactly pointing to a culture of jet setting in the near future.

It’s complicated

The topic of vacationing is a complicated one for consumers. Not only do they need to deal with changing travel restrictions and potential quarantine measures on return, they’ve got to brave travelling in close proximity to others and potentially face social judgment for venturing out.

Brands can help quell worries around the opposing forces outlined above by being clear about their Covid-19 guidance, and maintaining frequent, up-to-date communication with customers through all their owned channels.

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Stay safe,

Brandwatch Response Team