Travel is continuing to pick up steam and return to pre-pandemic trends. This week, flight and hotel booking app Hopper hit the most downloads in a single day this year and the #2 place in its category below Uber.
Downloads, which have been growing steadily for the last few months, hit 49K last Tuesday, beating its last high of 48K in April.
Pre-pandemic, Hopper's best day of downloads, in April of 2019, added 66K new users to the platform after a long climb. The good news is that the growth trend over the last few months looks almost identical to the trend that led to the peak in 2019, which to me signals the ad budgets are back and that demand is growing at near-normal rates now.
This is good news for the entire industry, from airlines to hotels, restaurants, and everyone else that's involved in the out-of-home experience.
The trend has to grow and fast because that's how it was pre-pandemic, and even though many of us are now more comfortable with doing more things remotely, it's unlikely that remote will replace IRL any time soon.
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