The days of revenge travel are over. After years of being cooped up at home, travelers rushed into the world with a vengeance, sparking a major travel boom from 2022 to 2024. But years of rising prices and a slew of new tariff threats have cast uncertainty over the economy.

A summer vacation survey by Bankrate in March found that only 53% of Americans said they planned to take a vacation this summer — about the same as last year but a drop from 2023, when 63% planned to take a vacation. Of those forgoing travel this year, 65% cited cost as the main factor; and of those opting to travel, almost a third said they plan to take on debt to do so.

But not everyone feels equally squeezed. A Deloitte survey conducted in early April found that even after President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff announcement a few days earlier, estimated travel budgets for the summer on average remained 13% above similar estimates for last summer. Through its surveys over the last few years, Deloitte has identified a trend: High-income Americans have made up an increasing share of those planning summer travel. Nearly half of respondents who said they planned to travel this summer made over $100,000, up from 35% in 2023.

To cater to the growing share of high spenders, the luxury segment of the travel industry is outpacing every other segment. As the middle class cuts back on travel spending, many high-earners are still going all out for their summer vacation.

Over the past year, more and more middle-income Americans have decided to stay home or pivot their plans to save money. Las Vegas, which largely caters to middle-class travelers, has seen a major drop-off. Mark Wayman, the owner of an executive recruiter company with knowledge of the Las Vegas market, says bookings in Sin City this year through September are "the worst I've ever seen."

Some of the anxiety is new, with uncertainty over how tariffs might affect prices and the broader economy. But even before then was the compounding effect of years of price increases. Multiple travelers told me that they have noticed that hotels and flights now include fewer services bundled into their price tags. Southwest Airlines, for instance, recently made headlines in March by changing its long-standing policy of allowing flyers two free checked bags. As a result, people are feeling like their dollar can't go as far.

Reycie Gallardo, a 39-year-old IT project manager in Los Angeles, says that these kinds of changes really shrink the scope of what you can do when you travel. A few years ago, he and his wife might have taken a long weekend as an opportunity to fly to a national park and stay for a few days. Now they'll drive somewhere close, like Santa Barbara or San Diego, and not even stay the night.

Makarand Mody, an associate professor of hospitality marketing at the Boston University School of Hospitality Administration, has noticed others making the same decision. Nearly a quarter of survey respondents in April told Deloitte that high prices had prompted them to drive rather than fly in the past year. Deloitte also found that lower-income travelers have driven up demand for more affordable accommodations in the past few years, including RVs, bed & breakfasts, and camping.

Talon Windwalker, a 56-year-old grief counselor in Janesville, Wisconsin, has been making a similar compromise. When planning his trip to South Carolina, the travel enthusiast's 50th state to visit, earlier this year, driving was a clear way to save on costs. But "you make a lot of sacrifices" in the tradeoff, Windwalker says. Driving requires much more planning, and the long days at the wheel can be difficult. "I was gone for a week, but four days of those were just driving to get there and back," he says.

Home-swap platforms like HomeExchange and Kindred have also been seeing huge swells in popularity. Advertised as more affordable, community-oriented alternatives to hotels or short-term rentals, these platforms help members arrange stays at each other's homes. HomeExchange says it facilitated 43% more house swaps in 2024 than in 2023 and finalized 47% more exchanges in January 2025 than the same time last year. Kindred, which launched in 2021, a factor that could account for some of its growth, reported more than 500% more nights swapped in 2024 compared with 2023.

And yet, companies like airlines, hotels, and home rentals are still seeing "some pretty healthy bottom lines," Mody says.

For one, because prices have been steadily rising, companies can still grow their revenue even if demand falters. But also, wealthy people are getting wealthier while maintaining a strong appetite for travel, he says. A recent analysis from Moody's estimated that the top 10% of households had come to account for half of all consumer spending. As high-income Americans travel and spend more, it can offset pullbacks by lower- and middle-income segments of the population that are seeing prices stretch too high for comfort.

This is evident in the booming luxury travel market. The American Hotel & Lodging Association's latest report said the luxury category of accommodations experienced the fastest rate of growth in terms of new construction in 2024. Bram Gallagher, the director of economics and forecasting at AirDNA, an analytics firm that tracks the short-term-rental market, says that demand for stays priced over $1,000 a night has more than doubled since 2019, and bookings in the $1,000 to $1,499 range were up nearly 15% year-over-year in 2024.

Not only is demand for luxury accommodations going up, but prices are too. "We're actually increasing divergence between the bottom and the top of the short-term rental market," Gallagher says. AirDNA data shows that more expensive listings are increasing in price faster than less expensive listings. From February 2024 to February 2025, the average price of "luxury" listings (the most expensive 20% of all listings) increased by more than 5%, whereas the price of "budget" listings (the least expensive 20%) fell by about half a percentage point. Analyses have found that recent growth in the short-term rental market has largely been driven by luxury listings, adds Gallagher.

Roy Madhok, a senior vice president of revenue and distribution at Highgate, a real estate investment and hospitality management company, says that while travel in the budget and middle range is tapering, there's no sign yet that the same applies to luxury travel. As far as he can tell, travel for the highest income groups isn't slowing down.

The growing divergence between budget and luxury travel is leaving a massive middle ground of people who just can't afford how steep prices are getting. While that could mean many of us are left scraping together vacations from a combination of airline miles and staying with friends, there are signs this stark divide might not last forever. Some companies are already starting to tap into this market and win back cash-strapped middle-income travelers.

Madhok sees the adjustment as a kind of "re-normalization" for the travel industry. The recent travel boom wasn't necessarily normal or sustainable, he says. Now, demand seems to be finding a more stable balance. After years of steep price increases in Vegas restaurants, hotels, and shows, for instance, Wayman says that "prices are already becoming more affordable." And if demand continues to stay this low, prices will continue to drop in tandem.

Data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics supports Madhok's theory of renormalization. According to the Bureau's consumer price index, the cost of airfare this year so far is about on par with airfare last year, which is in line with 2019 prices. Hotels are slightly cheaper this year than last year, though still higher than pre-2020. "After the vibrant rebound in post-pandemic demand, the US hotel industry has been navigating a period of stagnation," reads the recent AHLA report, "signaling a shift toward normalization in travel patterns."

Despite middle- and lower-income travelers feeling priced out of certain options, it's clear that they still have an appetite for travel, Mody says. "There's a really tremendous opportunity" for hotels and other brands to beef up their midscale offerings, he adds. Hotels have started realizing that "this is where people want to be from a price perspective," Mody says, and so creating options for people to travel within that more affordable range will be really important. Over the past year, companies like Hyatt, Hilton, and Marriott have announced plans for new hotel brands aimed at those middle-tier travelers.

Will that be enough to narrow the travel wealth disparity? Probably not, Mody says. After all, the travel economy is a reflection of the greater economy, and wealth inequality is still a growing concern. Despite ongoing economic uncertainties, the most luxurious travel experiences are still growing ever further out of reach for the majority of travelers.

Hannah Seo is a Korean-Canadian journalist based in Brooklyn, New York, who writes about health, climate, and social science.