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Southern California’s K-shaped summer: Who’s traveling depends on the pocketbook

May 2, 2026

Anchorage resident Gerard Leone is a perfect example of how travel to and from Southern California will be split this summer between the haves and the have-nots.

Leone, a furniture executive, flies exclusively on semi-private planes operated by JSX. In recent days, he jetted for his birthday to Las Vegas and then hopped a flight to Newport Beach to visit a friend. During his stay he hit up Bob’s Watches to see how much he could get for his Rolex Pepsi.

“I wanted $25,000, but I ended up walking away from the offer that was $500 lower …” said Leone, who was sitting in JSX’s luxury terminal on the northwest side of John Wayne Airport.

Travel and lodging industry insiders expect vacations to follow a bifurcated “K-shaped” trend this summer in which travelers fly or stay in lodging based on their budgets, big and small.

It’s the difference between flying on JSX with virtually no crowds and boarding a 30-seat jet parked less than 50-feet from the lobby, and the alternative of hauling luggage from a distant parking lot to stand in long security lines, hopeful that outbound flights aren’t canceled.

Jerry Leone of Anchorage waits for his flight to Las Vegas in the JSX terminal at John Wayne Airport in Costa Mesa on Thursday, April 23, 2026. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

As vacation plans begin to shape up and the World Cup games draw closer, those experts say the spending habits of budget conscious travelers across the region are ratcheting back, with many people opting to drive to local destinations such as wine tasting venues in Temecula, Santa Barbara and Paso Robles, or taking a charter boat to Catalina Island.

A big draw this summer will be the FIFA World Cup games June 12 to July 1, featuring eight matches in Los Angeles and six matches in the Bay Area. The national soccer team from Austria is staying at Santa Barbara’s Ritz-Carlton Bacara this summer, while the Qatar team is headed to the Rosewood Maramar Beach hotel in Montecito.

Short-term rentals

In Southern California, luxury short-term rentals are seeing a surge in wealthy travelers.

“The trend really did accelerate after last year’s tariffs,” said Jamie Lane, vice president of research for Denver-based AirDNA, a short-term rental data and analytics company.

Locally, stays at short-term rentals grew nearly 6% in the first three months of 2026 versus the same period last year. Lane said properties in the luxury tier outperformed those in the lower.

“There’s a lot of underlying reasons why,” he said. “Inflation is impacting certain sets of consumers more than others. Gas prices also are rising, and the short-term rentals are getting ready for the FIFA World Cup, where there’s going to be a lot of people coming into the region, and prices are going up substantially.”

AirDNA predicts that daily rate for these rentals will rise 50-60% in the first six months in Los Angeles, compared with the same period a year ago, according to Lane.

“It’s pretty tough to increase supply in L.A. because of restrictions, but you will see the squeeze when demand increases. For the World Cup games, we’re already seeing bookings up about 40% over last year,” Lane said.

Destination driving

In Santa Barbara, at the footstep to the Santa Ynez wine country, luxury resorts and bed-and-breakfasts are seeing healthy demand for their rooms — exceeding previous years occupancy by 10-12%, according to Bradley Cance, general manager of the Ritz-Carlton Bacara.

Tourism executives in Temecula and Catalina Island also are seeing strong demand as the summertime vacation season kicks off.

Jim Luttjohann, president and chief executive officer of Love Catalina, also is seeing more interest in the island’s bed and breakfast lodging. From Jan. 1, 2026, to mid-April, room revenue is up 11.6%. Short term rentals are up 18.1%.

Overall, he said, “it seems like people are waiting” until the last minute to commit to travel plans to Catalina because they view such a visit as an “easy and accessible alternative to driving and paying high gas prices, or flying and dealing with a multitude of issues including security concerns, prices and cancellation of flights.”

It’s a similar story in Temecula.

“We’re really filling up. Our weekends for the next couple of months are already sold out,” said Laura Wieters, co-owner of Temecula’s bed and breakfast Domaine Chardonnay Winery Estate. “I would say if the economy was stronger, we probably would be doing exceptionally well, but we’re not complaining.”

Reuben Doetsch, president and co-founder of AvantStay, a vacation rental management company specializing in luxury homes and boutique hotels, is bullish on the Southern California market.

“In general, we’ve seen a lot of success at the very high end of the market,” said Doetsch, whose company owns 50-plus homes in each of the Los Angeles and Newport Beach areas, along with another 150 units — including five boutique hotels — that were filled by attendees of last month’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio. “I think there is going to be resiliency with the drive-to markets as we enter a world where maybe there’s going to be slightly less international travel over the next 12 to 18 months, with everything happening in the world right now.”

Travel plans have been tempered for some people this year due to a surge in fuel prices following the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28.

Trouble brewing

Some analysts are hinting that trouble may be brewing for budget hotels, which are seeing an uptick in foreclosures and bankruptcies.

“Everyone is seeing how long the lines are at airports and TSA check-in, but the drive to destination markets is doing much, much better, and California lends itself to that,” said hotel sales specialist Alan Reay, president at Atlas Hospitality Group in Newport Beach. “People with money are still traveling. But we are seeing budget motels and the mid-price limited service hotels not doing as well as they were last year or the year before. These are the Motel 6s, Super 8s, EconoLodges and Travelodges.

“Quite honestly, we’re seeing quite a steep increase in defaults and notices of defaults being filed on these properties statewide.”

Last fall, the owner of two side-by-side hotels next to Disneyland in Anaheim — the Days Inn and Budget Inn — defaulted on their loan to buy the properties, according to a filing by the lender.

Tourism organizations in California and elsewhere say European vacations are looking less affordable, citing airlines like Lufthansa and KLM that have announced they are are cutting hundreds of flights in response to the International Energy Agency warning in mid-April that Europe has six weeks of jet fuel reserves remaining due to shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. A fifth of the world’s crude oil supplies flow through that narrow body of water.

Citing higher jet fuel costs, JSX hiked its fares a month ago, according to Alex Wilcox, chief executive officer for the charter airline, which he started in Orange County a decade ago before shifting its headquarters to Dallas in 2018.

Alex Wilcox, CEO of JSX, on the tarmac, is pictured with one of the airline's Embraer passenger jets at John Wayne Airport in Costa Mesa on Thursday, April 23, 2026. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG) — Alex Wilcox, CEO of JSX, on the tarmac, is pictured with one of the airline’s Embraer passenger jets at John Wayne Airport in Costa Mesa on Thursday, April 23, 2026. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

“Our product is so differentiated from everything else. There’s so much demand for what we do, than what we have in capacity,” said Wilcox, whose airline offers more than 200 semi-private flights daily across the U.S. with its 30-seat Embraer regional jets. “I don’t want to be a Pollyanna, but we raised our fares 10% about a month ago, right when the conflict started. We didn’t see any slowdown in bookings.”

“There’s a lot of wealthy people here in Orange County,” he said. “We’re seeing above-average demand for our service. Fuel costs are a big, big concern for us. Before the prices went up, it was 22% of our costs, now it’s probably closer to 30%. It’s significant. I’m not saying everything is great, but we’re looking for signs of weakness in demand, and we’re not seeing it.”

Several airlines — including United and American Airlines — also have hiked fares because of the jet fuel crisis. A group of budget airlines recently banded together to ask the White House for a $2.5 billion bailout to help combat increasing jet fuel prices. On Friday, Spirit Airlines announced it would likely shutter all operations after its rescue deal with the government failed to materialize.

In late April, Norwegian low-cost, long-haul airline Norse Atlantic Airways began cancelling all flights into LAX this summer.

“This cancellation is due to the unforeseen global fuel crisis, and we unfortunately with heavy heart had to cancel our beloved LAX routes with too high fuel risk exposure,” Norse said in a statement.

While speculation rages amongst industry experts over the fate of summer travel, residents are still eager to get away from home.

High-roller gamblers Huda and Saleem Lahlouh from Yorba Linda aren’t putting the brakes on their monthly trips to Las Vegas.

They also were waiting in the JSX lobby to catch a flight for their monthly trip to the Venetian Resort in Sin City.

The Lahlouhs have plenty of money to gamble. Saleem Lahlouh sold his plumbing supplies business, EZ-FLO, to Reliance Worldwide Corp. in November 2021 for $325 million.

“The other side of the airport is very crowded. We’re trying to avoid that,” said Saleem Lahlouh. “It takes us about 45 minutes to get to Vegas. The Venetian has a car waiting for us when we land. Sometimes they send a private jet to pick us up.”

Huda and Saleem Lahlouh of Yorba Linda wait for their flight in the JSX terminal at John Wayne Airport in Costa Mesa on Thursday, April 23, 2026. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Southern California’s K-shaped summer: Who’s traveling depends on the pocketbook Orange County Register

News Details

Southern California’s K-shaped summer: Who’s traveling depends on the pocketbook

Short-term rentals

Destination driving

Trouble brewing

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