People are making travel plans and booking tickets as the holiday season nears. Johannes Thomas, CEO of Trivago, joined Cheddar News to provide tips on saving when booking lodging ahead of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

<div class="block">People are making travel plans and booking tickets as the holiday season nears. Johannes Thomas, CEO of Trivago, joined Cheddar News to provide tips on saving when booking lodging ahead of Thanksgiving and Christmas.</div>

Stretching Your Dollar

Stretching Your Dollar: What to Know About Holiday Travel

Thanksgiving right around the corner like a lot of Americans. You may be traveling for the holidays but prices can surge around this time of year, especially when it comes to accommodation. So joining me now is Johannes Thomas, the CEO of Trivago to help us save on our holiday days. Johan. Thank you so much for coming on and what should consumers know when booking their lodging for Thanksgiving? Yes. Thank you for having me. I mean, obviously the good thing is that prices are plateauing. So we don't see further increases of hotel prices. I think that it is good to see and then what to know. I mean, the top destinations are continue to be Las Vegas, New York, Orlando, Miami. And then we see more and more us travelers going international. There's a big advantage because of the foreign exchange which is very good. The dollar is strong. So going to London Cancun or Paris is a big thing and if you want to really strike a good deal, the budget destinations in Europe are Istanbul, Madrid Barcelona, which are pretty famous right now and you can have a good night for $130 that's, wow, that is a pretty good deal. What about the rest of the holiday season? Right. If people aren't traveling for Thanksgiving, maybe they want to take a festive December trip, even get home to see family for the many different holidays that happened between Thanksgiving and the New Year. I think the destinations are not that different. I think what's overall very important if you are up for Thanksgiving book now, don't wait. And that's also the general advice and the pricing trends. We are seeing when you are going on a trip, on average people book 30 days in advance if you book even more in advance, that's where the great deals are on the table. And we still see a big price discrepancies between websites and that's a good way of saving what are some ways to save on hotels? I think the awareness needs to be there that there is one room with many different prices. So really shopping around on different websites. That's also where we as Trivago support you comparing prices still matters a lot. It even becomes more important after the pandemic. And then what I personally do as well, check out website of the hotel, sometimes you have added values that you are getting there or you have special arrangements and we also compare those on our website. So I think that's always a good way to find, get more value for money at the end. Johannes. Any other ways to save on holiday travel. So what we see travelers doing is that they are traveling on shorter trips. So lower star category, of course. And if you do a good job in researching the hotel, you find a four star that's as good as a five star. And also staying closer by, we see airfare still very high. So airline tickets still high. So staying closer to your home is probably a good idea. And if you are for the thrill, last minute is always a good option, I would avoid doing that in peak season. But if you are traveling out of out of season, that's where you usually find also pretty good. What is shaping up to be some of the hottest spots for 2024 for travel next year. So what we see that's a global trend in the US is part of that. We see it's really a year of Japan where we see Osaka Tokyo being a big trend where you can go apart from that. Certainly Las Vegas, New York and so remain hot and turkey is something which is great value for money. If you are more up for adventurous travel, New Zealand, Patagonia or Nepal are great things that are on the rise for more adventurous travelers. What should people know when they start to think about bookings for next year, Johannes? So I think overall travel is still booming. So I don't expect prices to go down substantially. So important. Book in advance check out. We know that about 80% of people are up for tipping into their, into their savings. We know people want to spend less on birthday presents and less on clothes to have money to save and, and go for traveling. And that's quite obvious what everybody can do is now, you know, what's important to me, what do I want to invest and then don't leave money on the table. Compare different websites. I think that's very important. Um In the, in the next year it will not change. What are some of your favorite spots? Johannes? Are they on this list too? Mine is the Alps. Yeah, I discovered the Alps. Yeah, I have two little kids. So I, I've started going to the Alps um where you can go by car, it's more sustainable as well. And uh it's really great to put a lot of things into the car and then just go with the kids. So you have less of the trouble with the plane. So, you know, one question that I have is I noticed that Las Vegas is a top spot both for this year, for this holiday season for Thanksgiving. And it looks like for next year as well. And I know the new debut of this sphere structure, right? You two, I debut in 24 show residency there in Las Vegas just in passing. I've heard a lot of people try to get tickets and planning to travel to Vegas this time of year to see this very show. How much is that sphere, that new structure, concert venue, event space have to do with some of the popularity there. So we see in Las Vegas there is a slight increase in prices. So you can probably see that a lot of things are going on there and it's not one thing, probably a lot of uh events are happening are adding up there and that, that I assume is one of them Las Vegas was hot, is hot. And uh um it's one of the few destinations where we actually have seen an increase in prices year on year around this time. All right, Johannes Thomas. Uh, thank you so much for joining. We appreciate it.