New early-bird special: Have vaccine, will travel
When the coronavirus hit, Jim and Cheryl Drayer, 69 and 72, canceled all their planned travel and hunkered down in their home in Dallas.
But earlier this month, the Drayers both received the second dose of their COVID-19 vaccinations. And in March, armed with their new antibodies, they are heading to Maui for a long overdue vacation.
Across the United States, older people have been among the first in line to receive their COVID-19 vaccinations. And among hotels, cruise lines and tour operators, the data is clear: Older travelers are leading a wave in new travel bookings.
Americans over 65, who have had priority access to inoculations, are now newly emboldened to travel — often while their children and grandchildren continue to wait for a vaccine. For the sil- ver haired, it’s a silver lining.
“We’ve very willingly been compliant with masking and social distancing, and have basically lived inside of our bubble here in Dallas,” Jim Drayer said. “We haven’t been inside a restaurant in a year. So we’re anxious to get out now and do things a little more safely.”
At the Foundry Hotel in Asheville, North Carolina, an 87-room luxury hotel in what was once a steel factory for the Biltmore Estate, reserva- tions made with the hotel’s AARP promotional rate were up 50% last month. Aqua-Aston Hospitality, a Honolulu-based company that runs resorts, hotels and condos, reports that senior-rate bookings climbed nearly 60% in January.
The Drayers, who have gone gorilla trekking in Africa and done adventure travel in India, Israel and Egypt, admit that their trip to Hawaii is something of a baby step
“We’re testing the waters,” Cheryl Drayer said. “We didn’t want to end up quarantined in a foreign country or not allowed back in the United States. This felt like a safe place to go, where we were still in the United States.”
That sense of safety is partly because Hawaii, with its mandatory quarantine and contact tracing, has managed the pandemic well. The couple feel confident that if they were to face any health issues while on the island, they wouldn’t be stymied by an overburdened health system.
“We’re traveling to a destination that, by all the numbers, is safer than where we live right now,” said Jim Drayer. “It feels like our bubble has cracked open a little.”
Older people are more eager to travel in 2021 than other age groups and also more likely to link the timing of their travel to when they receive their vaccinations, according to a January survey conducted by the travel agency network Virtuoso. In the study, 83% of respondents over 77 said they were more ready to travel in 2021 than in 2020, and 95% of the same group said they would wait to travel until they received their vaccine.