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| Photo by Freeimages.com/Andre Schaer |
The majority of Americans (86 percent) are concerned about terrorist attacks occurring while on vacation in various regions of the world in the future, prompting some to make changes to their travel plans, according to the annual Vacation Confidence Index released by Allianz Global Assistance.
The findings are the result of an Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of Allianz from May 3 to 10, 2016. 2,007 Americans were interviewed online via Ispos’ American online panel.
The region Americans are most concerned will be the site of an attack is the Middle East (75 percent), followed by Europe (66 percent) and Africa (63 percent).
With recent attacks in Istanbul, Israel, Paris, Brussels, and Nice, almost a quarter of Americans (22 percent) say that the fear of further violence has influenced their vacation planning in some way; whether that be canceling (6 percent); changing locations (5 percent), travel dates (4 percent), mode of transportation (4 percent), local tours (4 percent) or accommodations (3 percent); or by purchasing travel insurance (3 percent).
As Americans age, the fear of terror attacks happening while traveling to different regions of the world increases significantly. That trend, however, is reversed for travel within the U.S. and Canada, where Millennials aged 18 to 34 have the greatest fear of an attack happening on home soil (57 percent) compared to Generation X (51 percent) and Baby Boomers (48 percent).
Those Americans influenced by an act of terrorism are more likely to be traveling within the U.S. or Canada (50 percent), likely due to the higher number of domestic vs. international vacations planned, Allianz said. Internationally, Americans who have changed their plans were most likely to be visiting Europe (42 percent), followed by Asia (29 percent), Latin America (26 percent), Australia and the South Pacific (26 percent), the Middle East (22 percent) or Africa (21 percent).
An analysis of flight bookings showed a 10 percent overall increase in travel to Europe during the summer, despite recent acts of terror in Brussels, Istanbul and France. While these targeted destinations saw a significant decrease or virtually no change in U.S. travelers visiting during the upcoming summer, Europe as a whole recorded an overall increase to 515,676 travelers in 2016 compared to 471,823 in 2015.