Soaring Travel Costs Are Weighing on Even the Wealthiest Vacationers, WSJ Study Shows

Wealthy individuals remain just as interested in travelling as they were last year, but costs have become a larger factor in their plans, according to a Global Travel Study conducted by WSJ Intelligence between June 27-July 19.

Of the 879 Wall Street Journal readers surveyed—who had an average age of 56, were 79% male, and had an average net worth of about US$3.5 million—94% intend to travel for leisure in the next 12 months, down just 1% from 2023. Additionally, 64% plan to travel internationally, up from last year’s 60%.

Travellers are most concerned about costs amid ongoing inflation and other economic challenges, even as 80% of respondents say they plan to increase or maintain their travel spend compared to last year.

The cost of flights and hotels is the top factor of importance for WSJ readers, with 78% concerned about prices, a nine-point increase from 2023.

“Travel is still on the up—our readers are still really enthusiastic,” says Carolyn Romano, associate director of Luxury Lifestyle Intelligence at The Wall Street Journal. “But at the same time, it’s yet another year of market volatility and inflation, so I just think they’re being a little bit more thoughtful about the way that they’re traveling.”

Availability of flights and hotels is the second-biggest issue for travellers, with 76% of readers responding that it is a factor of importance for them.

Notably, as factors of importance, both loyalty programs and discounts and deals are up 10 percentage points year over year. Romano says this increase is “pretty significant.”

“Our reader approaches every purchase as an investment of some sort, and even our reader is still taking all of these factors into consideration,” she says.

Despite rising costs, the post-Covid enthusiasm for travel remains, with 70% of respondents traveling more than they have in the past. Over the next 12 months, WSJ readers’ average anticipated spend on leisure travel is US$18,305, up from last year’s US$18,250.

As for destinations, 86% of respondents are considering traveling to Europe, down just 1% from last year. Italy is the top European country of choice—superseding the U.K.—seeing a 9% annual increase in interest.

Though most destinations, both international and domestic, included in the survey saw similar interest as last year, traveling to Asia is up 10 points from 2023, with 40% of respondents considering booking a trip to the continent. Japan ranks the highest, with 61% of respondents considering traveling there, up 6% from last year.

When making travel plans, 72% of WSJ readers say they go to family and friends for recommendations. Only 13% report consulting a travel agent, though people taking cruises are much more likely to use a travel agent.

“Call us optimists. Call us dreamers. Call us whatever the hell you want, but we’re betting on people, and we like those odds. The future is for everyone.”

That ad copy is from the voice-over of a July Meta Platforms META -3.38%.

spot that’s been part of a public-relations blitz to position Meta as the humanist AI company. The message was undercut by the ad’s inclusion of David Bowie’s “Five Years,” a brooding 1972 song about an impending apocalypse. But this week CEO Mark Zuckerberg left no ambiguity, publishing a 6,500-word manifesto—about 10 times the length of this newsletter—with a title that echoed the ad: “The Future is for Everyone.”

That seems to be Meta’s new tagline. In light of sinking public opinion and the company’s thousands of lawsuits from states, school districts, parents, and users, Meta’s public relations have been defensive. This push represents a return to offense, with a chance to distinguish Meta’s approach to AI from other labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, or SpaceX SPCX +9.65%.

“It is surprising that the discourse from many developing AI is so filled with doom,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I do not understand why anyone who believes that AI will eliminate most jobs and much of humanity’s relevance would rush to build that future.”

Zuckerberg frames what sort of future we build with AI as the central issue of our time. “We believe that delivering superintelligence to everyone is the way to answer this question,” he says. “This has the potential to begin a new era of personal empowerment where individuals can use this powerful new capability to reach their full potential, pursue their interests, and improve their lives and the world more than ever before.”

The flood of words belies the situation on the ground in mid-2026. Americans, at least, have a love-hate affair with social media. A November Pew Research Center poll reported that 71% of U.S. adults used Facebook, and 51% used Instagram. Worldwide, 3.6 billion people use at least one Meta app every day.

But in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in July and August, 61% of respondents said they wanted more government oversight of social media, and two-thirds supported laws to keep children under 16 years old off the platforms. When it comes to Meta in particular, in the 2026 Axios Harris 100, an annual poll about corporate reputation, Meta placed 96th out of 100. It’s only above two other social media companies, Chinese ultracheap retailer Temu, and Spirit Airlines, a defunct air carrier. Regarding ethics, Meta came in last, and it was only ahead of TikTok in trust.

The steady drip of headlines in the teen social media trials isn’t helping. Last week, Meta lost a judgment in New Mexico state court that raised their liability in that relatively small jurisdiction to nearly $1 billion dollars. On Wednesday, jury selection began for a federal case with four states suing Meta over addictive product design, and false marketing that said its platforms were safe for teenagers. In July, Meta claimed that the states are asking for a total of $1.4 trillion in damages, in addition to design changes in the apps. This is part of a multidistrict litigation, where thousands of federal trials with social media defendants are coordinated in Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ district courthouse in Oakland, Calif.

There is a separate such group of thousands of cases in California state court, mostly with individual plaintiffs. The steady drip of bad headlines from the courts will continue unless Meta decides to settle en masse.

Meanwhile, in the second quarter, Meta booked “$2.40 billion of charges related to legal proceedings,” according to its quarterly filing. That may be just the beginning.

Zuckerberg spent 6,500 words getting his utopian message out, but I can sum it up in two: Trust us. The evidence is that Meta has a long way to go to win back that trust.

Soaring Travel Costs Are Weighing on Even the Wealthiest Vacationers, WSJ Study Shows

Meta is betting on a human-first AI future, but growing legal battles and declining public trust are putting Mark Zuckerberg’s vision to the test.