How Is The U.S. Travel Industry Faring Currently?

PCLN: Priceline Group logo
PCLN
Priceline Group

According to the U.S. Travel Association’s Travel Trends Index report, domestic leisure travel in the U.S. is at its lowest growth level since December 2012. This might imply lower domestic travel spending as is evident by the year-on-year  decline in travel volume growth.

However, domestic leisure travel is still outpacing the business travel growth in the U.S. It is supported by factors like a healthy labor market and increasing wages. After the recession, inbound international travel helped the travel sector to grow, however, now due to the U.S. dollar’s steep rise with respect to a lot of other currencies, inbound international travel is displaying slow growth. Visits from Canada are on the decline, while Europe is still reeling under the Brexit decision. Hence, despite its lackluster growth, domestic leisure travel is the main driver for the U.S. travel industry currently. However, the slow growth suggests that the second half of 2016 might not witness robust demand as well. International travel is expected to remain flat till this year’s end.

dom and leisure

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Implications For Major OTAs

Priceline has almost 90% of its gross bookings coming from outside of the U.S., hence it might not be as impacted as Expedia, which has recently undertaken a consolidation of the U.S. online travel market with its important acquisitions such as Travelocity, HomeAway, and Orbitz. Expedia’s Q2 2016 results were adversely impacted by the integration problems of its acquired entities on its platform.
This, coupled with a sluggish domestic demand, might impact the company negatively because of this slow growth.

Have more questions on Priceline and Expedia? See the links below.

Notes:

1) The purpose of these analyses is to help readers focus on a few important things. We hope such lean communication sparks thinking, and encourages readers to comment and ask questions on the comment section, or email content@trefis.com
2) Figures mentioned are approximate values to help our readers remember the key concepts more intuitively. For precise figures, please refer to our complete analysis for Priceline

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