Terms such as "revenge travel" and "pent-up demand" are being thrown about as the travel industry recovers.
And, as travel companies online and offline report their first quarter 2022 earnings, the extent of the recovery is evident.
Research from Quantum Metric is helping to build out the picture of what’s happening across the sector.
Conversion rates, for example, have steadily increased with weekly rates increasing 36% between January last year and March this year.
Cart abandonment rates are down meanwhile as consumers move from thinking about booking to actually making a booking.
Quantum Metric says: “Despite inflation and rising gas prices in Q1, we see abandoned cart rates significantly drop in the U.S. once we reach the beginning of March.”
In the U.K. abandonment rates have also improved but remain 42% higher than in 2021, likely because of nervousness around price increases and the war in Ukraine.
The research goes on to show that 65% had a trip canceled because of the pandemic, 40% have rebooked in the first few months of 2022 with a further 34% planning to do so soon.
Average cart values reflect the desire to invest in travel and have been increasing steadily since December 2021.
Average cart values in the U.S and U.K. have grown by 26% in the past four months although consumers are still on the hunt for value.
More than half of consumers (56%) say finding the best price is the number one factor and 51% are looking at two to three sites to shop around.
Consumers are also looking to other means such as buy now pay later and installment plans as well as loyalty points to help spread the cost.
Mobile trends are also highlighted in the research with more than 50% using their devices for researching and/or purchasing trips, rising to more than 75% who are using them for managing trips or contacting customer service.
Bookings via desktop remain higher than those on mobile devices, however, with a 24% increase in desktop conversions seen in Q1 2022.
The Quantum Metric data is based on aggregated browsing information across travel sector sites and apps collected from January 2020 through March 2022 while survey responses came from 3,400 consumers equally split between the U.K. and U.S.