Table of Contents
But that’s not the story the travel stocks themselves are telling. Worries about inflation and a resurgence in Covid cases in China are starting to take their toll.
Is this a bad sign for the summer travel season and the economy? It’s still too hard to tell.
No more ‘revenge spending’ due to inflation?
Analysts at Morning Consult said in a report earlier this month that “services like air travel … registered modest spending declines as robust demand faltered slightly amid eyepopping prices.”
Labor shortages could hurt the travel sector this summer too, especially at airlines.
“Demand for seats on planes is increasing but supply is constrained, leading to higher ticket prices for consumers,” said Christopher Raite, senior analyst at Third Bridge, in a recent report.
“If airlines could staff their aircraft more reliably, there would be more flights available, but the labor situation is challenging and adding to inflationary pressures in the industry,” he added.
Raite also pointed out that “wage and fuel cost pressures” are a major issue for the airlines and that could “cap the profit recovery across the entire industry despite soaring revenue.”
Travel CEOs are guardedly upbeat
For their part, travel industry executives remain cautiously optimistic about the summer, even as inflation and other macro concerns are an issue.
“Despite the usual caveats for Covid, rising inflation to worry about and of course the geopolitical situation, the pent-up demand that’s out there for travel seems to be outweighing anything the market can throw at it,” said Peter Kern, CEO of Expedia during an earnings conference call with analaysts earlier this month.
“We continue to be feeling very good about a summer recovery that should be very robust,” Kern added.
And one travel CEO even seemed to relish the rising prices.
“Inflation is an ugly word, but … there’s a pretty side to it, which is pricing power,” said Norwegian Cruise Line CEO Frank Del Rio during the company’s earnings conference call with analysts this month. Del Rio said that the cruise industry should be able to raise prices without hurting demand.
He even went as far as to predict that 2023 could be a record year for the company, if momentum continues to build.
Still, he did have a caveat: demand should hold up only as long as there is an “absence of more black swan events,” referring to the phrase investors use to describe highly unpredictable occurrences.
The pandemic, supply chain disruptions, the war in Ukraine and inflation at its highest level in four decades can all be considered black swans. That’s why Del Rio also said, “we’ve had more black swan events in the last two years than I think we’ve had in the prior 20.”