Travel in 2021? The Results Of The Dickins Survey

As 2020 rolled into 2021 with no particular end in sight for Coronavirus, we were curious to know about travel in 2021 and what people’s appetite for travel is this year. So, we shared a survey with our followers in the first week of January to help us understand. Thank you to all those who took part, we are so grateful for the insights your answers gave.

One thing is abundantly clear – we are all a bit consumed by wanderlust right now! After being cooped up for the better part of a year, we are all very much looking forward to/desperate for the day we can freely travel again…..

We are all definitely hoping these days will pass!

 These are the questions we asked in our survey about travel in 2021 to find out what people think about travel this year.  

Q 1. Where do you live?

Most of our respondents were in the UK with 33% living elsewhere in the world.

Q 2. How do you feel about travelling in 2021?

76% of respondents felt comfortable and extremely keen to travel as soon as the vaccine is distributed. However, the rest are cautious and will try to avoid travel if possible in 2021. Radio Forth News conducted their own poll on Twitter. They asked if people would put off travelling abroad in 2021 if that meant a return to more normal life at home? With over 90% responding ‘yes’ it shows we are willing to work together to get back to normal, even if it means putting off international travel this year. 

Q 3. Despite the current gloom, there is a sense that the vaccines have created light at the end of the tunnel. Do you feel confident about booking a trip for….? We gave the options of after Easter, the summer, the autumn and not until 2021 to chose from. 

The answers were more hopeful than we’d imagined. 20.9% felt confident to travel after Easter, summer was popular (27%) but autumn was the time people felt most confident to book a trip for this year (31%). Whilst 21% want to wait until 2022 to travel. Autumn is one of the most wonderful times of year to visit Edinburgh. With so many trees in the city and their leaves changing colour, the opportunity to wrap up in cosy jumpers and sit by a fire sipping on a whisky makes autumn special in Edinburgh.

Autumn is a great time to visit Edinburgh.

Q 4. When you do travel, will your priorities be to….. take a holiday, visit family, both or neither? 

The most popular answer was that people want to take a holiday and we know how they’re feeling!! This has been an incredibly turbulent time for everyone and it’s clear we all deserve a good break. 44% of people said taking a holiday would be their reason for travel in 2021.

Another 18% wanted to visit family. This has been one of the toughest aspects of the pandemic for many people. In our small team alone, most of us haven’t seen close family in well over a year now, and this will surely be a strong reason for travel once the restrictions ease. 33% of people wanted to combine taking a holiday with visiting family – the best of both worlds.

Taking a holiday and visiting family are top of the agenda for travel in 2021

Q 5. When you take a holiday this year, will you……staycation or go abroad? 

It was an even split down the middle at 50/50 staycation vs travel abroad. Our open ended final question asked what would be important when deciding to travel. Respondents frequently mentioned safety and restrictions being ended. We conducted our survey in early January. Since then news about new variants of Covid and the awareness that keeping our borders as Covid free as possible may well lead to staycations being the travel of choice for this year. Many of us made new discoveries travelling in our homeland last year and so we all know that it’s possible to have a great, even sunny, staycation in the UK! Staycations are a brilliant way of helping local economies with their Covid recovery and being conscious of supporting local is one of the good things to have come out of this pandemic. It’s a sustainable way of travelling too and increasingly, that matters more and more.

As far as the information goes, we were very encouraged to hear several UK scientists commenting in an article by WiredUK that staycations would likely go ahead in the UK this summer.  

Q 6. Would you love to visit Edinburgh this year?

A resounding 87% of respondents hope to visit Edinburgh this year – the desire is there, so we just have to be patient and work together to get beyond the pandemic. With the Edinburgh International Festival, Fringe Festival and International Book Festivals all planning to go ahead in some form August, it could be a fantastic, if somewhat cautious, return to life as we know and love it. 

We know that you realise why Edinburgh is an award winning city – it has been voted The Guardian’s favourite UK city 13 years in a row; in 2018 it topped the list of ‘Britain’s best city to visit’ in the Top 20 Travel Destinations. The Telegraph Travel Awards described it as being ‘beautiful, scenic and compelling’, with a rich history and interesting architecture. We love sharing Edinburgh with guests and have our fingers crossed for another summer of brilliant weather like we had in 2020. 

Edinburgh in the summer sunshine

Q 7. If you do plan on travelling this year, what’s important to you?

Sun and Safety – the two top priorities of travel in 2021. I can’t say we haven’t spent our fair share of winter evenings reliving past holidays and dreaming of new ones to take in the future. And sitting here in early February with sleet driving against the window, we definitely agree with the need to feel some sun on our faces.

Here at Dickins, we’re taking all our responsibilities to keep everyone safe very seriously. Our homes are all cleaned to very high Covid standards by housekeepers who have completed Covid cleaning courses. Key collection is contact free too.

Overall, although it’s abundantly clear respondents are very excited about travel in the future, but there’s  understandable concern for 2021. With safety being a top concern of those planning to travel this year, the success of the vaccine programme is crucial and people want to travel when restrictions are lifted and life feels more normal. Fundamentally, as far as travel in 2021 goes, we all want to travel soon as it feels safe to do that and hurrah for that, because we can’t wait to welcome people back to Edinburgh!

We’re hoping for our streets to be busy again at some point in 2021 as soon as it feels safe for visitors to return.