BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--StudentUniverse, the world’s leading travel booking service for students and youth, today unveiled the impact that terrorism has had on the travel plans of students in the US and the UK, and how sentiments were impacted immediately following a terrorist incident. This analysis is based on a recent student survey as well as a review of booking trends to destinations impacted by terrorist incidents over the last several years.
Survey Findings from US Students
The results of the survey revealed the resiliency of students and their commitment to travel, even in the face of adversity. For US students that had travel plans booked to a destination where a terrorist attack had recently taken place, only 3% had canceled a trip as a result. Additionally, only 6% of students cited canceling a trip due to fears about the risk of a terrorist attack or incident taking place in the location they planned to visit. Other key findings include:
- Likelihood of Canceling a Trip. Only 5% of students said they would definitely cancel a trip if it was planned to a destination that was then victim to a terror attack or incident; 51% said they would be unlikely to cancel, or they would definitely not cancel their trip.
- Safety. When asked how safe they would feel visiting a destination that had been victim to a recent terror attack, 11% said they would actually feel slightly or much more safe visiting that destination, 29% said they would feel neither more or less safe, 44% said they would feel slightly less safe and 16% said they would feel much less safe.
One of the US survey respondents provided some additional insight into why she answered the survey the way she did, “I would not change my travel plans because of world events. I am a college student lucky enough to have the ability to travel while I have little responsibilities and would not avoid traveling because of the things happening around the world. I am about to travel to a country that has had tragic events in the recent past which causes me to be more alert and cautious, but I believe it will still be an amazing adventure,” said Kellie K, California State University - Channel Islands.
Survey Findings from UK Students Post-Terrorist Incident
When we examined responses from UK students to these same questions in the days immediately following the London Bridge attack (June 2, 2017), some interesting trends emerged:
- Likelihood of Canceling a Trip. No respondents said they would be likely to cancel, or would definitely cancel, a trip to a destination that was victim to a terror attack or incident (compared to 11% of the general UK survey respondents). The number of respondents that said they would definitely not cancel was at 15% (compared to 11% of the general UK survey respondents).
- Safety. The respondents who said they felt “neither more or less safe” to visit a destination that had been victim to a recent terrorist attack increased from 31% to almost half (46%) of respondents.
The Impact of Bookings on Nine Cities Impacted by Terror Attacks
When we looked at our booking data, we saw that many destinations did not see any impact on bookings in either the week or the month following a terrorist incident. For a few others, the bookings were impacted in the week following the incident, but rebounded and were up in the month following the incident.
Following are a look at bookings week over week (WoW) in the week after the incident and month over month (MoM) in the month after the incident in nine cities impacted by terrorism over the last several years:
- Boston, up 67% WoW; up 26% MoM
- Sydney, up 38% WoW; up 63% MoM
- Paris, flat WoW; up 27% MoM
- Brussels, down 84% WoW; up 2% month over MoM
- Tel Aviv, up 22% WoW; up 12% MoM
- Nice, up 267% WoW; up 87% MoM
- Berlin, down 14% WoW; up 51% MoM
- London, up 19% WoW; down 14% MoM
- St. Petersburg, down 75% WoW; down 87% MoM
“Students are less likely to cancel their travel plans because of world events than other travelers might be. These students are often embarking on once-in-a-lifetime experiences—from backpacking adventures to Gap Years to semesters abroad—and refuse to give up their opportunity to have these travel experiences,” said Mike Cleary, global managing director, StudentUniverse. “While we certainly encourage students to be vigilant and heed all government travel warnings, we are happy to see students forging ahead with their global adventures.”
About StudentUniverse
StudentUniverse is the world’s leading travel booking service for students and youth. It offers exclusive pricing and terms on flights, hotels and tours through contracts with dozens of world-class partners and more than 80 airlines. Its Travel Services division handles client requests for groups and custom itineraries.
StudentUniverse launched in 2000 and was acquired by Flight Centre Travel Group in 2015. StudentUniverse is headquartered in Boston with offices in London, Toronto, New York and the Philippines. StudentUniverse believes that travel is essential to a modern education. Millions of students use the service every year. For updates on StudentUniverse follow our corporate Twitter profile and blog.
