14 Ways The Coronavirus Pandemic May Change How We Travel In The Future

In 2019, approximately 83.4 million US citizens traveled overseas, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office. Today, with a global level 4 health advisory in effect, trips to South Korea are being replaced by virtual tours of Seoul's museums, and travelers who dream of making pasta with the pros are tuning in to pasta-making livestreams from Italy.

Travel pros Jesse Neugarten, founder of Dollar Flight Club, a subscription service that delivers cheap flight alerts, and Joanna Lord, chief marketing officer at Skyscanner, an online travel company that offers flight comparison tools, looked into their crystal balls (and survey-generated data) to give us their best guesses on what the future may hold.

According to Dollar Flight Club's April report, which surveyed 20,000 of their most active members, over 56 percent plan on staying in the US over the summer.

Meanwhile, 61 percent of travelers reported that they’d feel comfortable traveling internationally over the next six months, with Paris, London, Rome, and Barcelona topping respondents' wishlists.

When it comes to prices, international flights over the holidays have dropped by up to 65 percent, according to Dollar Flight Club deal experts, who've found $278 roundtrip tickets between Chicago and Paris and $296 roundtrip flights between New York and Athens.

Dollar Flight Club analyzed airfare and industry data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on 9/11 and the Great Recession of 2008, using a regression model to predict how the pandemic will affect travelers and airlines in the future.

Based on that, Dollar Flight Club's report estimates that airfare prices will decrease by 35 percent on average through 2021 before increasing sharply (by 27 percent on average) to surpass 2019 levels through 2025.

If airlines merge and cut flights, people may have fewer options, funneling everyone onto planes that will be more crowded and less comfortable, the Dollar Flight Club noted. A similar sentiment was echoed in reporting by CNN, which predicted a reduced number of seats, fewer choices, and higher prices for air passengers in the future.

The Dollar Flight Club’s report estimates that airlines will ramp up additional fees to help them turn a profit. “We expect bag fees to come back to major carriers in addition to additional seat fees, charges for snacks and drinks, and increased ticket change fees,” according to the report.

While we’ve already seen an increase in flexible cancellation and refund policies, Skyscanner's Lord noted that “when it is safe to travel again, we anticipate that travel providers will want to encourage hotel, flight, and car rental bookings. Price will be one of the elements influencing travelers’ decisions, but they will also be looking at a number of other factors, such as safety and flexibility.”

To find that flexibility, Neugarten said that they "expect people to book directly with airlines rather than through third party sites like Expedia. By booking directly with airlines like Delta, you get access to the lenient cancellation, refund, and change policies that airlines are currently offering. If you book with third party sites, that becomes more complicated and harder to take advantage of."

Historically, American passport holders have had an easy time hopping borders — but that may change thanks to the pandemic. Currently, the global level 4 health advisory states that "many countries are experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks and implementing travel restrictions and mandatory quarantines, closing borders, and prohibiting non-citizens from entry with little advance notice."

Neugarten believes that these regulations, which were put in place to slow the spread of the virus, could linger for Americans. “Over the next year we expect only a handful of countries to open up borders to travelers from hard hit COVID-19 countries like the United States. If they do open up borders, they will likely require travelers to obtain proof from a doctor or testing facility to prove that they are not a risk for transmitting COVID-19 or high risk for getting sick.”

Even with all the unknowns, half of Dollar Flight Club survey respondents said that COVID-19 has not impacted how they feel about future travel.

This is a sentiment Lord at Skyscanner can get behind. “In the long term, we are optimistic; travel is such a fundamental part of being human. People will always want to explore other cultures, to see different parts of the world and simply connect with each other, whether that’s at home or abroad,” Lord told BuzzFeed. “We'll never go back to 'business as usual’— it will be ‘business as unusual.’”