Longwoods International’s most recent tracking study of travel sentiment among U.S. travelers revealed an encouraging trend.

Heading into the 2020 Labor Day holiday weekend , 49 percent of those surveyed said that they feel confident about venturing outside of their communities—a ten-percent jump from the number of respondents who said the same two weeks ago and the highest level of such sentiment reported since early May.

Also, the percentage of those who said they’d feel safe dining in local restaurants and shopping in their local community’s retail stores reached 48 percent—the highest confidence level reported since mid-May’s nadir of 31 percent.

The number of travelers who have travel plans scheduled within the next six months is now up to 69 percent—a five-percent uptick from two weeks ago.

On the reverse side of travel, 44 percent of respondents now support opening their own communities to outside visitors, compared to just 31 percent who reported the same at a low point in mid-May.

“The recent trends in consumer confidence are indeed encouraging, but we have already seen consumer confidence ebb and flow during the first six months of the pandemic,” said Amir Eylon, President and CEO of Longwoods International. “We don’t expect a sustained rebound approaching pre- COVID levels until we have a widely-distributed, effective vaccine in place.”

The Wave-19 Travel Sentiment Study was conducted on August 26, 2020, among a randomly-selected national sample of 1,000 adults, ages 18 and over. Selection quotas were applied in keeping with Census targets for age, gender and region, making the survey as representative of the overall U.S. population as possible.