Restaurants are also cashing in on this momentum. They’re all projecting very strong bookings for the second quarter. The four largest US airlines - American, United, Delta and Southwest, which between them control 80% of the market - all reported either record cash flows or first quarter revenues, some of it due to higher fares. In the first three months of the year, the eight largest US airlines, which between them control 95% of the nation’s air traffic, were essentially back to the level of traffic they had in the first quarter of 2019, and 23% ahead of the traffic they reported in the first quarter of 2022, when the Omicron variant of Covid-19 curbed demand.

Vacationing remained elevated in April with 2.7 million Americans not at work because they were on vacation, the highest level for that month since 2017.Īmericans' debt surpasses $17 trillion for the first time Nearly three million Americans took a vacation from work in March, the highest number for that month on records going back to 1976, according to the government’s Current Population Survey. The upcoming summer months might “set a record or be close to it” in terms of room occupancy, according to Chip Rogers, president and chief executive of the American Hotel & Lodging Association.Ī recent survey from Bank of America showed that 68% of Americans plan to take a vacation this year. That could position the industry to weather a recession in a way it hasn’t before. Leisure and hospitality is expected to fully recoup all its Covid-related job losses this year as American consumers continue to travel, dine out and spend on in-person experiences, especially during the summer. The industry added 917,000 jobs in April from a year earlier, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the second-largest gain of any industry during that period. That equaled about a 49% contraction of that sector’s workforce.īut it started to recover in May of that year and, last month, stood just 2.4% shy of its February 2020 level. When the pandemic began, restaurants, bars and hotels were hard hit, shedding more than 8 million jobs in the first few months of 2020. This expected strength in leisure spending means big business for an industry that was on its knees just three years ago.

Leisure and hospitality businesses are hiring, offering enhanced benefits and trying to meet persistently robust demand. Many economists are predicting a recession later in the year, but one of the industries hurt most in the pandemic is bouncing back to pre-Covid levels.

The killer vacation book