AARP Hearing Center
As the nation emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, travel remains a priority among people 50-plus. However, the amount of money people will spend on travel in 2023 is down from last year, according to the AARP 2023 Travel Trends report.
About 62 percent of 50-plus travelers plan to take at least one leisure trip this year, according to the survey of 2,000 people conducted Nov. 10, 2022, through Dec. 5, 2022. The 15-minute online survey addressed those 18 and older. Leisure travel, or personal travel, is defined as taking a trip at least 50 miles from home for two or more nights.
Though travel is the top priority for discretionary spending by travelers 50-plus, they plan to spend $6,688 in 2023, a 20 percent decrease from $8,369 last year. The survey found the decline is driven by travelers 70-plus who plan to spend $6,777 in 2023, more than 40 percent less than they anticipated spending in 2022.
It’s hard to say definitively why the 70-plus traveler plans to spend less in 2023, but accommodations and destinations may have something to do with people’s expectations that travel will look different than it did before COVID-19.
Travelers who are 70-plus say “they will stay with family and friends versus a hotel style of accommodations,” says Vicki Levy, senior research manager at AARP. “We also know that more of them are avoiding crowded destinations and more of them are traveling domestic only as compared to pre-pandemic. So they’re probably spending less because they’re not doing as much international travel as they previously were doing.”
Overall, travelers who expect to spend less in 2023 than in 2022 attribute it to taking less expensive trips, having less to spend and taking fewer trips. However, “25% of those 70-plus who are planning to spend less say that it’s because they’re using loyalty points or miles,” Levy says.
The survey found that the cost of travel emerged as the primary barrier to leisure trips in 2023, surpassing concerns about COVID, which were prominent the past two years. Fifty-two percent of travelers 50-plus cited cost. Twenty-seven percent cited financial fears due to inflation as an impediment to travel.
