The coronavirus has upended the US travel industry. Fears of infection, governmental measures restricting travel and access to public places, and the economic downturn will depress bookings, sales and ad spending in 2020 and beyond.

No industry has been as devastated by the coronavirus pandemic and its effects as travel. Airlines, car rental agencies, hotels and resorts, online booking services, cruises and destination marketing organizations, and business travel support services found their operations ground to a near-halt for much of Q2 2020, and the situation has barely improved in H2.

In a difficult year for digital advertising overall, US travel industry spending will decline faster than any other vertical. It will bring up the rear in total spending and claim the smallest market share of all industries we cover.

Booking travel digitally has long since become the norm in the US—but with so little travel happening in 2020, this metric was bound to decline. Instead of 129.6 million people booking travel online, that figure will be 113.4 million, wiping away 16.2 million potential bookers.

Although performance advertising executions to drive corporate travel bookings are down currently, educational content, including best practices for travel in a post-pandemic world, is a big theme for B2B travel advertisers. Though diminished, current digital ad dollars are working to acquire new leads for marketing post-pandemic and to give customers clarity about the future of corporate travel.

Expedia acquired vacation rental marketplace company HomeAway in 2015, and Booking Holdings has prioritized growing its alternative accommodations, which include home-sharing listings on sites like Booking.com and Agoda. According to Booking Holdings, 20% of its 2018 revenues came from alternative accommodations. Google has also emerged as a growth-driver in this space.