75% of Americans Say Companies Should Require Proof of COVID-19 Vaccination to Travel

One of the major milestones in the fight against coronavirus (COVID-19) will be the development of a vaccine. Although that vaccine breakthrough has not yet happened, much progress has been made with numerous trials being conducted.

While many experts agree that a vaccine alone won’t allow us to completely return to normal, it will help us get back many of the things that have been lost due to the pandemic.

When it comes to travel and the travel industry, there’s been talk of whether or not companies should require proof of vaccination.

With that in mind, we conducted a survey asking Americans around the country about their comfort level traveling in a post-COVID-19 vaccine world as well as if they agree that companies should require proof of vaccination.

We surveyed over 4,300 Americans and analyzed the survey on a national level, by state, and by political party. Here are our results.

Main Survey Findings

The first question we asked respondents if their comfort level regarding traveling would change if airlines/hotels required proof of vaccination.

What we found is that the majority of Americans (65.8%) would feel more comfortable if a travel industry company would require proof of vaccine. Breaking that down even further, 37% of respondents said that they would feel somewhat more comfortable and 28.8% said they’d feel significantly more.

Only 13.4% of respondents said they’d feel less comfortable. 9.2% said they’d feel somewhat less and 4.2% said they’d be significantly less comfortable. 20.9% said they’d feel about the same whether or not a company required vaccination proof.

Next, we broke down the responses by political party. We found that self-identifying Democrats are 11% more likely to feel more comfortable than Republicans if companies required proof of vaccination.

Our next questions were on whether or not companies should require proof of vaccination. We asked respondents to react to this statement:

“If an effective COVID-19 vaccine is developed, hotels, short-term rentals (like Airbnb), airlines, and other travel-related businesses should require proof”

Overall, 3 in 4 Americans agree that companies should require vaccination proof for customers to travel (74.2%). Just as interesting, only 16.2% said they didn’t agree. 9.6% said they neither agreed nor disagreed.

When analyzing by political party, we found that Democrats are 9% more likely to favor proof of COVID-19 vaccination than Republicans, and 16% more likely than Independents (80% Democrats – 68.9% Independents – 73.3% Republicans).

As for opposing proof — when analyzed by political party, Republicans are 86% more likely to oppose companies requiring proof of vaccination than Democrats. However, Independents had the highest response rate of oppose at 19%. Overall, 18.5% of Republicans opposed and 9.9% of Democrats.

Finally, we took the data and broke it down by state and the percentage of respondents who favor vaccine proof by companies for travel. The results show that only one state had under 50% of respondents say they favor requiring proof — New Hampshire at 47.4%. All other states had over 50% of respondents say they favor companies requiring vaccine proof. Below are the ten states (listed in order) with the lowest rate of favoring proof of vaccination.

1. NH – 47.4%
2. VT – 50.0%
3. AR – 52.9%
4. TN – 55.7%
5. IN – 58.5%
6. OH – 59.0%
7. NE – 59.1%
8. ID – 60%
9. OK – 60.0%
10. WI – 60.5%

As our results have showed, most Americans support vaccine proof. In many states, it was an overwhelming response in favor of proof. Maine led all states with the highest percentage in favor at 99%. Below are the 10 states with the highest percentage of favoring companies requiring proof of vaccination to travel:

1. ME – 99.0%
2. AK – 92.7%
3. AZ – 85.7%
4. NV – 85.2%
5. CT – 83.8%
6. NY – 82.1%
7. CA – 81.4%
8. RI – 80.0%
9. WY – 80%
10. KS – 78.9%

Final Thoughts

Developing an effective and available coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine is one of the next biggest steps to beating the pandemic. When that will happen is still unclear, but our survey results show that when it comes to travel, most Americans will feel more comfortable with it. Along with that, the majority of Americans feel companies in the travel industry should require proof of vaccination in order to use their services.

For those who are traveling now, we remind you to follow all health and safety guidelines outlined by the CDC and other officials. This includes wearing a mask, washing your hands or using hand sanitizer frequently, social distancing, and avoiding contact with anyone who is sick.

Analysis Methodology

We surveyed 4,390 Americans and the respondents were a mix of ages and genders. Political party affiliation was 33% Republican, 37% Democrat, 21% Independent, 5% None, and 4% Other. We estimate the margin of error is less than 3% with a confidence level of 90%.