AmEx Predicts Vaccine Will ‘Unleash’ Pent-Up Demand in Consumer Travel

American Express expects consumer travel “will come back” after the COVID-19 pandemic, Doug Buckminster, head-global consumer services, told an Autonomous Research virtual conference Thursday. “That's our enterprise position.” The “rebound” AmEx is seeing in consumer travel and entertainment is “an effect of substitution,” people substituting driving vacations and “home-stay rentals” for air travel, he said. Expansion of outdoor dining, plus pickup and delivery, “has bounced the restaurant category, more than you would expect just from dine-in volumes alone,” he said. Buckminster expects a vaccine “will unleash a lot of anticipatory and pent-up demand” in consumer travel and entertainment, though “getting back historic volumes is going to require time,” he said. “There's no question that T&E volume is taking a disproportionate hit.”