What will travel look like in the ‘new normal’ – Revolut travel survey

With travel under lockdown and a growing sense of resignation amongst us travellers, we look for other things to do. That usually amounts to travel-related questions and quizzes – be honest, we’ve all done them. We all try to guess what will travel look like in the ‘new normal’.

Am I right in guessing that most of your answers focus on how much we’ll travel and the fact, none of us can wait to jump on a plane the moment presents? Rather than host a virtual quiz session, Revolut decided to tap into their 15 million strong user base and ask them about travel.

The survey was conducted in 15 countries with 12,000 people taking part. This included the UK, US, Singapore, Japan and more. Looking into the travel habits of the world, the survey shed some light on what will travel look like once the pandemic has ceased and the world has been vaccinated.

READ MORE: We speak to James Shanahan from Revolut about travel and more.

Touching on topics like staycations, safety, vaccinations and more, the survey is an interesting look into the world’s new attitude to travel.

Travel survey: Staycations are here to stay?

With staycations available in some countries, the survey tries to understand whether respondents would prefer to travel in their home country or abroad in the next months?

38% of Japanese travellers chose domestic with the Italy and Ireland following behind at 27% and 26% respectively.

Given a choice between going overseas or taking a staycation in the next few months, Singaporeans were the most keen to leave with 55% of respondents in Singapore choosing abroad. They were followed by Germany (47%) and France (45%) with just 20% of respondents in Japan looking to travel abroad in the next few months.

However, interestingly 34% of Japanese also don’t feel comfortable travelling domestically or internationally – the highest amongst all countries that participated in the survey.

Travel survey: How are we adapting to safe travel?

Overall, there is a reluctance to use public transport when it comes to travel due to the current climate. Ranking at the top, just 23% of Germans surveyed said they would take public transport and are not worried. On the opposite end of the spectrum, just 7% of the Portuguese feel that.

60% of Lithuanian respondents and 59% of Portuguese respondents say they will use a car or another private means of transportation to limit the risks of Covid-19 infection while moving about their holiday destinations this year. No country surveyed had less than 40% of respondents choose the safer option.

With regards to payment methods, 61% of Singapore’s respondents say that they prefer using a card or phone to pay instead of cash to avoid touching cash. This puts them ahead of other markets like Sweden and Ireland, both at 53%.

Travel Survey: Immunity Passport

This one is tricky, as we’ve discussed the immunity or vaccination passport before and it might not be a feasible option. However, the travel survey asks the respondents how they would reach.

Singaporeans seem to be the most hopeful about obtaining an Immunity Passport with 88% of respondents saying they hope to get theirs very soon. Italians come in second at 75%. 82% of respondents think that it is a good tool to allow people to travel safely.

However, Australians and Americans don’t think so with only 15% and 17% looking to get one. They might have a point as we don’t know the answer to the question “What will travel look like in the ‘new normal’?”.

Travel survey: Family holidays rule all

As we look to the ‘new normal’, the types of holidays are changing. When we think about what will travel look like in the near future, it is clear that travelling for parties, adventure or for festivals has taken a backseat to family vacations.

Most respondents from around the world said that they would take family holidays, with the Swedish leading the way with 57%. Another popular holiday choice was a beach vacation with Sweden again leading the way with 38%.

Travel survey: We still want to travel

This might be stating the obvious, but it seems that most travellers are very keen to travel with most planning to travel at least once. Australia leads the way with 96% of respondents fitting that bill, followed closely by Americans (95%) with France, Germany and Poland tied at 92%.

Singaporeans might be the most active travellers with only 11% of respondents
planning to travel only once in the next few months.

The Revolut travel survey gave us fascinating insight into what will travel look like in the not-so-distant future. Now as we patiently wait for travel to restart, this might be a good time to share how you think travel will change. Drop us a message or comment on this post to let us know.