Alaska Cruises Topples Las Vegas In 2015 Travel Leaders Group Survey

In a closely contested race, Las Vegas, that darling in all travel surveys, lost out to Alaska cruises as the most popular U.S. travel destination in Travel Leaders Group 2015 Travel Trends Survey. Orlando, Maui and New York City took the number two, three and four spots, respectively while Vegas fell to No. 5.

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The race was an extraordinarily tight one, with Alaska scoring 33.56 percent, Orlando 33.22 percent, Maui, 32.55 percent, New York City 32.13 percent and Las Vegas 29.61 percent.

The annual survey is based on booking data collected from 1,226 travel agency owners, managers and front-line agents from Travel Leaders Group’s various companies.

“For the past decade and a half, Las Vegas and Orlando have jockeyed for the top spot in our survey,” said Barry Liben, CEO of Travel Leaders Group. “So what we are seeing – even if mere tenths of a percentage point separate our top four destinations – is a seismic shift for American travelers in 2015.”

Honolulu (20.97 percent) maintained its No. 6 position this year, with San Francisco (16.36 percent) holding on to the No. 7 spot. Chicago (15.44 percent) jumped from No. 11 to No. 8. Rounding out the top 10 were Los Angeles (15.18 percent) and Washington (12.67 percent), respectively.

There were fewer surprises in the international destinations rankings. Caribbean cruise (37.5 percent) maintained its top spot, with Cancun (31.8 percent) again placing second.

Europe was a big winner, capturing eight of the top 15 international destinations. London (27.6 percent) jumped from No. 6 in 2014 to No. 3. European river cruising (25.1 percent), a segment that continues to blossom, moved from No. 5 last year to No. 4 this year, while Europe Mediterranean cruise fell to No. 6 from No. 3. Rome (21.3 percent) captured the No. 5 spot, Paris (19 percent) No. 7, Punta Cana (15.7 percent) No. 8, Montego Bay (13.5 percent) No. 9 and Playa del Carmen/Riviera Maya (11 percent) No. 10.

“Internationally, while Caribbean cruising leads the way, Europe is drawing in Americans in the highest numbers we’ve seen this millennium, said Liben. “The strong interest for those destinations plays a definite factor in our agents stating nearly 97 percent of their clients will be spending the same or more on their vacations in 2015.”

Interestingly, Cuba, which has been stealing media headlines with the news of a re-establishment of ties between the countries, found its way onto the list of Central/South America Up and Coming destinations this year. Nonetheless, Cuba (9.4 percent) didn’t rate as high as Costa Rica (30.5 percent), Peru (11.2 percent), Ecuador and Galapagos Islands (10.2 percent), Cuba (9.4 percent) and Belize (7.9 percent).

Croatia (25.2 percent) maintained the top spot in the Europe Up and Coming category, followed by the Greek Islands (21 percent), Iceland (17.8 percent), Czech Republic (10.3 percent) and Portugal (8.8 percent).

In the Pacific Up and Coming category, New Zealand (30.4 percent) ranked as No. 1, followed by Bora Bora (11.3 percent), Tahiti (11.3 percent), Fiji (9.8 percent) and Bali (7.2 percent).

South Africa (41 percent) captured the stop spot for Africa Up and Coming, followed by Kenya (11.2 percent), Morocco (10.6 percent), Seychelles (9.1 percent) and Tanzania (9 percent).

Vietnam (27.5 percent) came in at No. 1 for Asia/Southeast Asia Up destinations, followed by Myanmar (11.2 percent), Maldives (9.3 percent), Cambodia (5.2 percent) and the Philippines.

In other survey developments, when agents were asked to compare their overall 2015 bookings to date to those in 2014, 48.1 percent said they were higher, 36.9 percent said they were about even and 15 percent said they were lower, echoing similar responses from the 2014 survey.

Better still, 83.7 percent of agents said they were optimistic about their businesses going forward into the New Year, with 14.2 percent saying they were neither optimistic nor pessimistic and only 2.1 expressing pessimism.

“An interesting headline from last week was on the ‘Great Divide’ in which Wall Street is bullish and ‘Main Street’ is still a bit gloomy,” said Liben. “From a travel industry perspective, our travel agents have never been more optimistic.”

Travel Leaders Group conducted the survey from Nov. 11 to Dec. 8.