Polls show more Americans willing to travel abroad

By Jane Engle
Los Angeles Times

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Our bags are packed, and we're ready to go abroad again.

War worries? Terrorist bombings? Money issues? No matter.

Exit the timid tourist. Enter the Teflon tourist.

That's the scenario, tour operators and travel agents say, as spring brings a bumper crop of international bookings by Americans. We're even going to Europe, despite the powerful British pound, expensive euro and recent bombings in Madrid.

More evidence of our lust for travel: The State Department is busily cranking out passports. It shipped nearly 13 percent more from October to February than in the same period the year before, the first significant increase since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said Kelly Shannon, spokesman for the department's Bureau of Consular Affairs. (Passports don't perfectly predict Americans' interest in travel because they may be issued for other purposes, such as identification or to replace lost documents, she said.)

There are some who question this trend, especially for long-haul trips, but the popular view is positive.

"This is shaping up to be a banner year," said Steve Loucks, spokesman for Carlson Wagonlit Travel Associates, a nationwide network of travel agencies. "Demand is growing exponentially." As an apparent result, "overall, pricing is going up," he said.

International bookings, many of Carlson's member agencies said, are as strong or stronger than they were before the 2001 terrorist attacks that sent the industry into a tailspin, according to Loucks. Nearly two-thirds of the agencies said bookings to Europe were up this year over last.

Although it was too early to predict peak summer demand, online travel agencies Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz reported higher European bookings so far this year than last. Some areas in Europe are up as much as 30 percent, said Amy Ziff, editor at large for Travelocity.
 
Remarkably, even the devastating train bombings in Madrid didn't seem to dampen Americans' enthusiasm for the continent.

Orbitz saw no decline in European bookings after the March 11 attacks, spokeswoman Terri Shank said. Five days after the bombings, Tauck World Discovery, a tour and cruise operator based in Norwalk, Conn., said it had logged 42 bookings and only three cancellations on its itineraries that included Spain.

In a survey, more than half the Carlson Wagonlit agents who deal with Spain said the bombings did not affect their business.

Travelocity's Ziff called the rebound in wanderlust "a return to the 'new norm."

After more than two years of travel concerns and outright calamities — the Sept. 11 bombings, stepped-up air security, the SARS outbreak in Asia, the Iraq war, the decline of the dollar and the uncertainties of the U.S. economy — resigned Americans have come to feel "this is the state of the world, and I'm still going to travel," said Ziff, based on Travelocity's bookings and polls her company has conducted.

So far, London is the top international destination being booked on Travelocity, followed by Cancun, Mexico; Rome; Paris; and Vancouver, B.C., Ziff said.

In questionnaires from Carlson Wagonlit, travel agents identified Caribbean cruising, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica as the top international destinations this year, followed by London.

At Expedia, Britain has been the most popular European destination, followed by Spain, France and Italy, said product manager Melissa Derry.

Poland and Portugal bookings are up more than 200 percent from last year, she added.

Whether American tourists' enthusiasm for world travel will carry through the year is unclear.

Peter Yesawich, managing partner of Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell, Florida-based marketing consultants, is skeptical.

The respected National Leisure Travel Monitor, an annual poll by Yesawich's company and Yankelovich Partners, turned up plenty of timid tourists. Only 62 percent of the 1,350 U.S. leisure travelers interviewed in January and February said they were interested in visiting Europe in the next two years. That's a significant decrease — from 68 percent last year and 71 percent in 2002.

Among the losers were France, down from 17 percent to 14 percent this year, and England, down from 21 percent to 18 percent.