GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) — Amid the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic there haven’t been a lot of people traveling–but that doesn’t mean travel isn’t on their minds.
Rose Gray with Fox World Travel says people are calling travel agents and making plans for when the stay-home orders are done.
“People are feeling comfortable with September departures,” Gray told WTAQ Thursday. “At first I would have said Fourth of July, but that is no longer the case.”
Cruise companies, airlines, and tour companies are offering rebooking incentives for those who had their trips canceled, and some of them are head turning.
“Many of the major cruise lines are offering customers whose trips were canceled…a cruise credit in the amount of what they paid, plus 25%.”
Gray says that could be used to extend the trip or book more shore excursions for the same price travelers would have paid anyway.
There are a few specific destinations that have been popular with recent travel seekers. Gray says recent customers are looking for trips to wide, open spaces, rather than trips to big cities. They’re also preferring to drive.
“They want a sense of ‘I am the master of my own destiny, and if I want to, I can hop in my car and drive home,’” said Gray.
That means the Grand Canyon and other National Parks might see a COVID-19 tourist boon in the fall.
Travel agencies have seen considerable business during the pandemic, especially in the early weeks where Gray says they had to work with their customers who were on trips abroad to find them flights home when airlines first began canceling trips as the pandemic broke out.
