Survey: Traveling and Entertainment in 2020 Amid COVID-19 Part III – Events & Vacation Locations

With a worldwide pandemic affected billions of people around the world and hundreds of millions of Americans, we sought out to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on traveling and event comfort in 2020. This included vacation plans, financial stability to travel and consumer risk assessment. As the lockdowns and restrictions are gradually eased, what are Americans’ opinions about going to specific events or vacation locations? Here are the results.

Note: This is part III of our survey about traveling and entertainment in 2020 amid COVID-19. Read the entire sequence:

Part I: General Travel
Part II: Flying & Accommodations
Part III: Events & Vacation Locations

Which events and vacation locations would you feel comfortable going to if social distancing standards were followed? (Check All That Apply)

Let’s take a look at the survey results:

• Sporting Events (NFL, MLB, NBA, etc.) — 23.84%
• Concerts — 23.33%
• Beaches — 64.67%
• Theme Parks — 27.96%
• Cruises — 13.89%
• Movie Theaters — 38.08%
• Restaurants and Bars — 55.06%

Interesting Demographic Comparison — The places people would feel comfortable attending with social distancing were similar for both men and women. However, a few categories did have some slight differences which are worth noting. For example, 27.89% of men feel comfortable going to sporting events with social distancing while only 20.78% of women do. Additionally, 68.67% of women feel comfortable going to beaches while only 59.36% of men do. Lastly, 15.66% of women feel comfortable going on cruises with social distancing while only 11.55% of men do.

Key Takeaway — The 64.67% surveyed that are comfortable attending beaches and 55.06% comfortable attending bars and restaurants with social distancing are significantly higher than all other events and locations. This makes sense as the other potential options in this question have a far greater number of people attending in much denser situations. At the beginning of the pandemic there was a lot of news surrounding cruise ships. Therefore, it is no surprise that cruises at 13.89% is the place people feel least comfortable going to even with social distancing.

Which events and vacation locations would you feel comfortable going to if social distancing standards were NOT followed? (Check All That Apply)

Let’s take a look at the survey results:

• Sporting Events (NFL, MLB, NBA, etc.) — 18.70%
• Concerts — 17.84%
• Beaches — 61.41%
• Theme Parks — 20.24%
• Cruises — 12.01%
• Movie Theaters — 20.75%
• Restaurants and Bars — 26.59%

Interesting Demographic Comparison — Men and women expressed a nearly identical comfort level of attending beaches without social distancing (61.35% for men vs. 61.45% for women). However, for all other events, men stated they were more comfortable attending than women without social distancing standards. For example, 23.11% of men were comfortable going to sporting events without social distancing while only 15.36% of women did. Men also outpaced women in comfort level without social distancing for concerts 20.32% to 15.96%, for theme parks 22.31% to 18.67%, for cruises 14.34% to 10.24%, for movie theaters 25.10% to 17.47% and for restaurants and bars 33.47% to 21.39%.

Key takeaway — 28.47% less people will attend restaurants and bars if social distancing standards are not followed. This stat is the difference between the 55.06% of people that said they would feel comfortable in the first question going to bars and restaurants if social distancing was followed and the 26.59% of people that said they would feel comfortable going to bars and restaurants if social distancing was not followed. This is the largest drop of any specific location among the two questions. Interestingly, the comfort sentiment for beaches still remained extremely high at 61.41% despite social distancing standards not being applied.

Would you pay extra to attend a sporting event, concert, theme park or cruise at a reduced capacity to prevent the spread of COVID-19?

Let’s take a look at the survey results:

• Yes, up to 25% more — 18.35%
• Yes, up to 50% more — 11.15%
• Yes, up to 75% more — 6.86%
• Yes, double the price — 1.20%
• No — 62.44%

Interesting Demographic Comparison — The youngest people in the survey were more likely to be willing to pay extra to attend one of these events at reduced capacity. For example, 46.41% of the age group of 18-29 said they would pay extra. Meanwhile, only 40.98% in the age group 30-44, 34.36% in the age group 45-60 and 24.69% in the age group of over 60 would pay extra.

Key Takeaway — 62.44% of those surveyed said they would not pay extra to attend a sporting event, concert, theme park or cruise at reduced capacity. With many of these locations planning on opening up at a reduced capacity in order to adhere to social distancing standards, they will need to keep their prices in check in order to get patrons to slowly come back.

If your state had a stay at home order, would you travel to a nearby open state to go to a beach, theme park, movie theater, restaurant or bar?

Let’s take a look at the survey results:

• Yes — 34.65%
• No — 65.35%

Interesting Demographic Comparison — The least likely age group to travel out of state to avoid restrictions or a stay at home order in their own state are the age group of 60 or over. The age groups of 18-29 with 37.25%, 30-44 with 36.89% and 45-60 with 37.44% all had a similar sentiment about traveling to a different state to avoid a stay at home order. Overall, 44.22% of men said they would be willing to travel out of state. This was significantly higher than the 27.41% of women that said they would.

Key Takeaway — 34.65% of those surveyed stated that if their state had a stay at home order, they would travel to a nearby open state to go to a beach, theme park, movie theater, restaurant or bar. This is an important statistic to monitor as states begin to loosen restrictions and the possibility that restrictions or stay at home orders in the future may need to be reinstated.

Survey Methodology

This Traveling and Entertainment in 2020 Amid COVID-19 Survey was conducted by SurveyMonkey on behalf of The Vacationer. You have just read part III of the series focusing on Events & Vacation Locations (See part I on General Travel here and part II on Flying & Accommodations here). In total, 583 Americans over the age of 18 were polled on May 17. The demographics of those surveyed include 43.05% male and 56.95% female. The age breakdown of participants included in this survey were 26.24% in the range 18-29, 20.93% in the range 30-44, 38.94% in the range 45-60 and 13.89% over 60. This survey has a confidence level of 95% and a margin of error of ±4.142%. You can learn more about SurveyMonkey’s sampling method by clicking here.

The questions were chosen and the results were analyzed by the post author, Eric Jones, who is a Mathematics and Statistics Professor at Rowan College South Jersey.

Featured Image via Pixabay