We’re Not Taking a Road Trip, Are You?
Like most of the country, we’re off on Memorial Day. Like many others, most of our vehiclevoice.com contributors will be staying close to home. With the national average at $3.87 on Friday afternoon, AAA tells us that the gas prices are causing about a 1% decline in the number of people traveling by car for the holiday. CNN even made up a new word to describe it: stay-cations. I, for one, hope that silly bit doesn’t take hold in our collective slang.
Memorial day travels…during less expensive times
AAA says the last time there was a decline in Memorial Day travel plans was in 2002, after 9/11, and this bucks a trend of increased travel. At that point, there was also some concern over fuel prices, the economy, and our future, though most to a less urgent degree than now. Last year, it seemed, people more or less felt they could shave some cost elsewhere on the trip to make up for it. This year, it appears more will opt to stay home. Anecdotally, our own Jim Hossack noted far fewer RVs traveling this year during his annual early May road trip.
The mood of the country seems to be understandably skittish; the economy is struggling, many homeowners are still dealing with the mortgage crunch, gas price increases are scaring people as well as confusing them, and, being an election year, there’s the air of uncertainty regarding the direction of the next administration.
Deloitte & Touche also released stats on expected travel, indicating about 25% of Americans still planned to travel, but that about 12% had canceled plans because of fuel costs. Airline travel looks to be down as well, as increased fares and fees show up for airlines struggling with the same fuel-cost increases.
My thoughts: Fuel cost is impacting plans, clearly, but it seems to be the uncertainty as much as the cost itself. We don’t know when these increasing prices will stabilize, we don’t know who will be running the White House next year, and it seems all the economic news is bad. If the economy itself was sound or fuel costs were stable, people would be more likely to adapt and find a way to go where they wanted. In the midst of uncertainty, though, spending money on vacation seems like something we can put off for now.
What about you? How are you spending Memorial Day?
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