Fewer Americans will travel, but spend more, on summer vacations, according to the seventh annual Allianz Travel Insurance Vacation Confidence Index released last week by Allianz Global Assistance. This differs a bit from 2015 when Millennials drove the Vacation Confidence Index. That said the results are very interesting. Summer 2016 vacation spending will jump $5 billion to reach nearly $90 billion this summer!

The amount of money Americans will spend on their vacation, on average, has increased significantly, according to the survey. The average American household that is at least somewhat confident they will take a vacation this summer will spend $1798 on average, up roughly 11 percent from last year’s average of $1621 per household. The total projected spend for Americans on summer vacations in 2016 is $89.9 billion, up from $85.5 billion in 2015. Check out this helpful video for more.

The survey, which tracks Americans’ confidence that they will be able to take a summer vacation and reports how much they intend to spend while vacationing, revealed that while half of Americans are confident they’ll take a vacation in 2016, four in ten are not confident. One in 10 have already taken a vacation this year while less than one percent are unsure. To be honest, with all that’s gone on in the world this year, who can blame them for their uncertainty. However, I do know that Americans are traveling to Europe in huge numbers regardless of the recent terrorist attacks.

Allianz Travel Insurance’s Vacation Confidence Index also found an increase in the Vacation Deficit, or percentage of Americans who think that a vacation is important but are not confident they’ll be able to take one. In 2016, nearly one quarter (22 percent) of Americans who say an annual vacation is important to them are not confident that they’ll take a vacation, compared to nearly one in five (19 percent) in 2015, representing a Vacation Deficit increase of three points, the first increase since dropping five points between 2013 and 2015.

Americans are facing a Vacation Deficit for summer specific travel as well: one in three (34 percent) Americans are not confident that they’ll take a summer vacation this year, an increase in three points over 2015. Four in ten (43 percent) are confident (32 percent very/11 percent somewhat) that they’ll get a summer vacation this year, down from 46 percent last year, which was the highest figure recorded since 2010.

The Vacation Confidence Index has been conducted each summer since 2010 by national polling firm Ipsos Public Affairs on behalf of Allianz Global Assistance USA. A vacation is defined as a leisure trip of at least a week to a place that is 100 miles or more from home.

Methodology
These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of Allianz from June 2 to 5, 2016. For the survey, a nationally representative sample of 1,007 randomly selected adults residing in the U.S. was interviewed by random-digit dialing telephone via the ORC Caravan omnibus. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate within ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire population of adults in the U.S. been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were weighted to ensure the sample’s regional and age/gender composition reflects that of the actual U.S. population according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Disclaimer: I work as an ambassador for Allianz Global Assistance (AGA Service Company) and receive financial compensation.

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