A new survey of 900 US adults by travel marketers MMGY Global finds a wide split between vaccinated and unvaccinated Americans who are aware of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 on travel intentions for winter 2021-2022.
Share of American adults who say news of the Omicron variant makes them less likely to travel in the next 3 months:
- Vaccinated: 61%
- Unvaccinated: 29%
Of the entire survey population (vaccinated + unvaccinated combined):
- 43% said they would be significantly less likely to travel if Omicron is found to be more likely to result in hospitalizations.
- 34% said they would be significantly less likely to travel if Omicron is found to be more resistant to current vaccines.
- 32% said they would be significantly less likely to travel if Omicron is found to be more easily transmitted.
- 67% said they support President Biden's decision to increase testing requirements for inbound international travelers.
- 64% said they believe airlines should require all passengers to be fully vaccinated to fly domestically, 67% internationally.
Survey was conducted 3-5 December 2021.
Comments:
There's something funny about those numbers. Sample size is small and we don't know numbers of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated. Were there relatively few unvaccinated persons in the sample? (If not, why did nearly 2 out of 3 respondents say airlines should refuse unvaccinated passengers?)
Based on other research data, people with whom you might not want to travel this winter (because of 20% or more saying they will never get vaccinated) include:
- 18-29-year-olds (21% per Kaiser Family Foundation)
- Republicans (20% per Kaiser Family Foundation)
- White evangelical Protestants (24% per Public Religion Research Institute)
- Residents of South Dakota, Idaho, Alaska, Oklahoma (29%-33% per Morning Consult)
- Farm workers (37% per Morning Consult)
- Regular viewers of Fox News Channel (20% per Morning Consult)
- Non-college-graduates (22% per Morning Consult)
But if you do travel, please be as safe as you can.
