Far Away, So Close

As travel moves toward what is called the “new normal,” and business and leisure travelers alike assess how, where and why they will travel, statistics are showing that staycations, drive-to locations, and urban resorts are high on determined travelers’ wish-lists this summer and fall.

- By Gretchen Kelly

The Travel Intentions Pulse Survey taken by MMGY Travel Intelligence in May showed that 36 percent of travelers were looking at a domestic leisure trip within the next six months. More than half (57 percent) said that even as the pandemic subsides they would most likely book travel to US destinations and 43 percent said they would travel to destinations closer to home. A third of surveyed travelers said they would drive up to 300 miles or more each way to get to a vacation destination.

“Texans are a staycation people anyway,” says Laura Krohn, director of spa and wellness at the Loma de Vida Spa at La Cantera Resort and Spa in Texas Hill Country, a short 27-minute drive from downtown San Antonio.

Krohn is busy readying the spa for Texans and out-of-towners who are taking advantage of the Resort’s open-for-business status as well as its state-of-the-art standards for COVID-19 protection.

“At the spa our staff are using face shields and masks. Poolside and gyms allow only 50 percent capacity to keep social distancing. We do temperature checks and have a thorough cleaning and touchless check-in protocol. People have been overjoyed to come back to the resort and they feel safe with our high standards of cleanliness.”

Those standards include sanitization stations throughout the resort, electro-misting systems for sanitization in guestrooms, hospital-grade MERV 15 HVAC filters for air handling systems and many contact-free services.