Survey: Americans Are Lame Summer Vacationers

Daily Newsletter

Reward your inbox with the TPG Daily newsletter

Join over 700,000 readers for breaking news, in-depth guides and exclusive deals from TPG’s experts

Email address

Sign up

By signing up, you will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.

Surprise: Americans are historically bad at taking time off — and a recent survey indicates that summer 2017 will be no better.

According to Generali Global Assistance's annual "summer holiday plans" survey, the average American vacation length will be about 1.4 weeks, down from 1.7 weeks in 2016, which also falls below the time taken by residents of other countries. The survey — which was conducted online for 10,000 consumers in 10 countries, with 1,000 consumers taking the survey per country — notes that Americans will also devote a 20% smaller budget to their summer plans than they did in 2016. To boot, Americans consider cash restrictions above all else in deciding where to travel.

Once they get where they're going, however, the situation grows even more bleak: Only 56% of those Americans surveyed said they'll completely unplug from work while away from the office. Compare that to the British, who report that 70% will leave their work at home.

How Americans say they vacation varies from Europeans as well. Nearly half have slept in tents, while only 23% of Europeans say the same. And while more than 60% of Europeans favor beach vacations, Americans tend to prefer traveling to urban areas. They also keep it domestic, with more than 40% of Americans saying they'll stay within the US while traveling this summer.

This was the 17th year Generali conducted the survey, completed by Ipsos on behalf of Europ Assistance and Generali Global Assistance between March 28 and April 21, 2017.