Skift Take
Travel, as a discretionary item, will never be fully immune to the impacts of a recession. But in today's environment, travel could be more recession resistant, if not fully recession proof.
Last month, we wrote about how a potential recession in the U.S. could impact the travel industry. The concern has been that a recession would hit travel spending and you can see it in the stock market: The Skift Travel 200 Stock Index is up only 3% since the start of the year while the global market is up 20%.
Revenues and profit margins have largely recovered to pre-Covid levels, but travel executives were pointing to a slowdown in demand on recent earnings calls. Here's how some companies described the environment:
Hilton: [We have] "tempered the high end of our expectations versus prior guidance due to softer trends in certain international markets and normalizing leisure growth more broadly". Expedia: "We're definitely seeing a reduction in room nights." Airbnb: "We are seeing shorter booking lead times globally in some signs of slowing demand from U.S. guests."At the Skift Global Forum last week, Marriott CEO Anthony Capuano said that even high-income consumers – who've been driving travel spending – had "just