Travel plans on shoe string
New york, Aug. 29: Vacations have become a luxury for many Americans trying to make ends meet in this economic downturn, but there are signs that people are slowly, even timidly, on the move again.
Families who postponed trips last year are making modest vacation plans, travel agents say. And business owners or executives who felt it was insensitive to travel as they cut costs and laid off workers are again making plans to get away, leisure industry experts added.
Mr Stacy H. Small, president of Elite Travel International, said at least half of her clients who were business owners cut back last year. “I had a lot of clients say ‘I just don’t feel right,’ ” she said. This year, nearly all have returned.
The pent-up demand is starting to filter through, though it is more a trickle than a flood. With it, analysts said, comes a new level of austerity as vacationers search for frugal ways to get away by juggling their finances, taking shorter trips and even staying with relatives.
The auto group AAA says it expects 34.4 million people to travel at least 50 miles from home this Labour Day weekend, up nearly 10 per cent from 2009, a forecast based on an improved economy and lower gasoline prices.
People are travelling with “one hand firmly clasped to their wallets,” said Mr Henry Harteveldt, a market researcher for Forrester Research. “The comments I get are that generally business is better, but no one is popping Champagne corks,” he said.
In response, hotels, cruise lines and other travel-related businesses are discounting rooms, advertising reward programmes and adding incentives, like the Cape Cod innkeepers who threw in a whale-watching excursion with a four-night stay, or the Las Vegas hotel that included a spa treatment with a room reservation.
Mr Lawrence J. Kordasiewicz, a 59-year-old retired teacher, and his wife found ways to cut costs on their trip to Cap Cod. They shared the driving with another couple and stayed fewer nights at the Honeysuckle Hill Bed and Breakfast, where he said a generous breakfast meant they did not have to eat again until dinner.
The cost of vacation travel can vary greatly — a vacation can be anything from a car trip to a campground to a condo rental to a lengthy stay in a luxury hotel.
One industry organisation, the US Travel Association, forecasts that spending on leisure travel will increase to $519.6 billion this year in the United States, from around $489 billion in 2009. With couples like the Kordasiewiczs taking advantage of incentives like free breakfast, restaurants and shopkeepers selling items like T-shirts, taffy and jewellry say travellers seem to be thinking twice before opening their wallets.
“They are coming through the door more,” said Ms Be-linda Schmitt, the manager of Guertin Brothers Jewellers in Cape Cod.“But I am finding that tourists are not interested in buying jewellry as much. We have started carrying jewelry that can maybe more meet the needs of people on a tighter budget.”
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