On January 27 of that year, the COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached the country after a man returned to Toronto after a trip to China, including Wuhan. Shortly thereafter, specifically on March 16, Toronto’s health chief announced that community transmission was taking place. Like almost everyone else, Canada closed most of the establishments, imposing confinement and that same day the border was restricted. A few days later, no one could enter or leave Canada. But the sun came out again for almost everyone, as on February 20, 2022, more than three million Canadians had recovered favorably from the virus. Then, the population began to lose their fear and returned to enjoy the old pleasures, such as traveling.
What is called “revenge trip”?
People had a real abstinence from pleasure travel, so the huge demand for tourism began to be called “revenge travel”. Revenge of what? Revenge of COVID-19 and confinement.
The vice president of the American Society of Travel Advisors, Erika Richter, describes them: “Revenge travel is a buzzword in the media that originated in 2021, when the world began to reopen and people decided to take back the lost time”. At the same time, it is related to the feeling of “life is short” that the pandemic left in those who endured it without serious problems.
Some statistics on revenge travel and credit cards
Comparison site Finty shared statistics on demand for credit cards in Canada. This shows that revenge travel is quite a trend for Canadians, with the search for “best airplane credit card” increasing by seven times in 2022 compared to 2021. On tourism and travel-related keywords, there was a recovery and returned to pre-pandemic search levels, while seeing a 21% increase over the years in search words related to credit card comparison and research .
It is worth mentioning that there was an increase of between 20% and 30% of searches to save money, reflecting the economic downturn left by the COVID-19 pandemic, including the increase in the Canadian inflation rate (8 .1% in June).
Commenting on this growing phenomenon, Finty director David Boyd said: “After two years of travel restrictions, the revenge travel trend is really alive in Canada. Consumers want to make up for lost time and travel credit cards are helping speed it up.”
Definitely, revenge or retaliation trips are proof that the world is slowly returning to pre-pandemic normality.