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Travel Rebound Continues Despite Omicron

The travel rebound continues despite Omicron’s worldwide headlines.

When the stock market crashed in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, I took the opportunity to give my investment portfolio a more income-producing bent.

While I am still learning, I have created a fairly sizeable monthly income along with riding the market back up to our recent new highs.

One of the ways I have accomplished this is to have REITs (Real Estate Investments Trusts) take a much more prominent position in my portfolio.  And, one of the ways I monitor the REIT industry is through a subscription that I have with the folks over at Hoya Capital Real Estate.

I share this with you, not because I get any financial gain, but to show you this interesting chart I found in my newsletter from them today.

This chart compares Daily TSA Checkpoint Passengers in 2019 with the number of passengers traveling in 2021.

As you can see in the chart, the number of folks traveling in December of 2021 is 85% of those traveling in 2019.  And as 2019 was one of the busiest travel years in recorded history, it is pretty clear that Omicron hasn’t put the dent into people’s travel plans as the Delta Variant did earlier in the year.

And it seems that this is because folks with triple vaccinations feel safe, as we’ve learned that the Omicron variant isn’t as dangerous as previous variants.

I can also share that from our travel agency perspective, we’ve seen just a handful of our clients canceling their journeys as compared to what we saw from the Delta Variant in recent months.

Summing It All Up

So what is my point?  The media loves to splash headlines that cause people to pay attention and read or watch their news updates.

And while we see a new upswing in positive Covid counts, it seems that the problems are predominantly happening among the unvaccinated, along with a few breakthrough cases occurring with minimal side effects.

And I think it is for this reason; we are not seeing large swaths of people canceling their vacations.

Small-ship cruise lines and small-group guided tours have operated for nearly six months with very few Covid outbreaks. Further, it seems that folks have grown into a more “let’s wait and see what happens” before canceling their beloved travel plans.

Lastly, let me say that we are not here to spoonfeed our opinions, one way or the other.  Our job is to educate, give advice, share our views, and then help you proceed with what is most comfortable to you.

We know that you want to travel, and we promise to do our best to help you sort out fact from fiction in the daily headlines.

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