A third of American travellers say higher fuel prices are affecting their travel plans, up from 21% a month ago, according to the latest tracking study from Longwoods International.
Of those who intended to travel in the next six months, 41% are now planning to visit destinations closer to home, 36% are reducing the number of trips they take and 8% are cancelling trips altogether.
“Last June, 94% of American travelers were planning trips in the next six months,” Longwoods International president and chief executive Amir Eylon said. “Now, that percentage has fallen to 89%, the lowest level in a year.”
The Iran conflict is compounding the effect. Some 27% of travellers said the war made them less likely to travel internationally. Of those, 40% said they would postpone international trips, 31% would replace an international trip with a domestic one and 19% would cancel international travel entirely.
The survey, supported by Miles Partnership, polled a nationally representative sample of 1,000 US adults on April 7-8 2026, with quotas matching census targets for age, gender and region.
The findings mirror trends already visible in UK booking data, where domestic holiday parks are reporting surges in demand as fuel costs and airspace disruption push travellers closer to home.
Holiday park operators across the UK are reporting a sharp uptick in bookings. Lovat, which runs sites across south-west England, said website traffic jumped after reports of possible jet fuel shortages last week, with holiday bookings up more than 30% year on year. “It is a little bit like Covid, when people couldn’t get away and now they just want the certainty of a nice holiday in the UK,” Lovat chief executive Raoul Fraser said, the Guardian reported.