For some wealthy travelers, fall is the new summer
22.10.2024 - 16:27
/ insider.com
/ Scott Dunn
Planning where to go for your next summer Euro trip?
No need to stop by Portugal to try some sardines. Just head to cities like Rome and Athens to experience the next best option — being packed against other tourists like tinned fish.
Summer is historically the most popular time to travel. The weather is warm, school is out, serotonin levels are high, and vacation getaways are jam-packed. So much so that many travelers are now opting instead for a fall respite.
A growing number of vacationers have been replacing their summer vacations with ones during shoulder season (the time between high and low travel, such as autumn) — to the extent that luxury travel agency and consortia Virtuoso saw a 23% increase in bookings for fall 2024 compared to the year prior, Misty Belles, its vice president of global public relations, told BI.
Forget asking where your friends "summer" — now, it's all about where you autumn.
Autumn travel often goes hand-in-hand with leaf-peeping excursions. (That's still true — AirDNA, which tracks vacation rental listings on platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo, told BI that demand in October for the popular fall foliage hot spots of rural New York and the coast of Maine is up 19.7% from 2023.)
Many of these offseason vacationers are also seeking out classic overseas summer destinations like Europe.
Travel-booking company Hopper told BI that in 2023, 23% of European vacations reserved on the platform were for September and October of that year, up 5% from 2019.
Jackie Roth — a travel manager for Scott Dunn Private, the invite-only subsidiary of travel agency Scott Dunn — told BI that all its clients have been requesting fall travel. And likely not for some quick, dirt-cheap getaways — Scott Dunn Private's members must spend a minimum of $100,000 on travel annually.
The ultra-luxury team now fields more requests for vacations in September than in the traditional ultra-peak travel months of June, July, and August, often to European countries like Italy, France, and the United Kingdom, Roth said.
Italy, in particular, reported a 15.5% increase in foreign visitors between September and November 2023 compared to the previous year.
"People are willing to trade going to the beach for their umbrella so they can experience some of the popular destinations without quite the crowds," Julie Durso, a Scott Dunn Private travel manager, told BI, adding that the team works with several Tuscany properties that are now trying to stay open through November.
Autumn can be a great time to travel if you're looking to avoid peak-season crowds and costs. Most children are back in school. And Airbnb said its vacation rentals are generally the cheapest from September through November.
According to data from travel