Gephardt: Planning a spring or summer getaway? COVID-19 optimism boosts travel bookings

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SALT LAKE CITY – After a year of canceled travel plans, people are antsy to catch up on their missed getaways. If you count yourself as someone who is ready to get away, you're far from being alone.

"We're really getting excited, particularly as vaccines are rolling out across the county," said travel expert Melissa Dohmen, who works for online travel agency Travelocity.

Her agency recently polled customers and learned people are just fed up with looking at the same four walls.

"We're surprisingly, or not surprisingly, finding people are ready to travel again this year," Dohmen said.

As rhetoric from elected officials suggested the pandemic could largely be under control by Independence Day, many Travelocity customers are laying down their credit cards for trips scheduled in July and beyond.

The KSL Investigators found millions of people are not waiting. According to data from the Transportation Security Administration, just over 3.9 million travelers passed through airport security checkpoints this past weekend.

Nearly 4 million people traveled by air last weekend. (Photo: KSL TV)

That is the most since the same weekend last year, right after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic. However, 3.9 million is still far below normal levels. During the same weekend in 2019, security checkpoints saw more than 7.4 million passengers — nearly doubling this year's number.

Still, last weekend's growth in traffic at the airports is proof of life for the struggling travel industry.

People are not planning big bucket list trips.

–Melissa Dohmen, Travelocity

Interestingly, though, the folks who are booking travel now are still largely doing it conservatively: shorter getaways to places they've been to before as opposed to trips of a lifetime.

"People are not planning big bucket list trips," said Dohmen. "Instead, they're planning what we call 'toe-drip trips', which are really designed to ease back into travel, create a sense of normalcy and rebuild confidence."

Travelocity said it was late December, when the vaccine announcement first came out, that they saw a surge of traffic and searches — and as they've moved into the first few months of 2021, demand for summer is looking quite strong.

Are you planning a trip for this spring, summer or fall?

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Matt Gephardt

You might say that Matt Gephardt was born into journalism. On the day he arrived at the Indiana hospital, his father, a reporter, had to quickly rush away after the delivery in order to front a news report. Matt’s television debut came a few years later when, as a toddler, he was used by an Indianapolis reporter to demonstrate how prescription drugs can be mistaken for candy. Matt’s “professional” career in the business began when he was 17 years old, attending high school in Los Angeles, and he landed a summer-job as a teleprompter operator in the Salt Lake City market. He moved to Utah, enrolled at the University of Utah, and never looked back. In the more than 20 years since, Matt has worked virtually every newsroom job: production crew, video editing, video photography, producing, executive producing. In 2010, Matt made the jump in front of the camera as an investigative “watchdog” reporter. Matt’s reporting has not only earned him several journalism awards, it has also led to law and policy changes at local, state and federal levels. When not investigating on behalf of Utah consumers, Matt enjoys “urban hiking” with his wife and three children – setting out on foot towards Sugarhouse or Downtown hoping to run into a friendly group of people gathered at a park, a festival or a new store or restaurant to try out. Matt is absolutely thrilled to be working at KSL where the commitment to ethical journalism, fairness and community is in lockstep with his own ideals.