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What's ahead for '08 travel |
Marin Independent-Journal, CA - Original Article
Dec-30-2007
Beth J. Harpaz
Declining dollar means sticking closer to home
Travel in 2007 was marked by high gas prices, new passport rules, record lows
for the dollar, and record-high air travel.
In 2008, experts say, Americans may take shorter trips or choose destinations
closer to home where their dollar goes further.
But they will still travel. The Conference Board's most recent consumer survey
found 45.8 percent of Americans intend to take a vacation within six months,
down just a tad from 46.4 percent a year ago.
"When there's a slowdown in the economy, travel only slows slightly," said
Douglas Shifflet of D.K. Shifflet & Associates, which tracks travel trends. "The
amount of time people spend on vacations and in hotels is hit harder. They make
tradeoffs; they stay closer to home or with friends and relatives."
"They'll look for other ways to save, like taking a day or two off of their
trip," agreed Amy Ziff, Travelocity editor at large.
International hot spots for '08 include Beijing; Central America; Italy, Eastern
Europe; and Lisbon, Portugal. But domestic travel could benefit from the weak
dollar and other trends. Visits to national parks were up 1.3 percent,
January-September 2007, compared with the previous year, with Yosemite and
Yellowstone adding more than a quarter-million visitors. Lonely Planet, the
guidebook publisher, picked the United States as its No. 1 destination for 2008.
"The euro has made it expensive for U.S. travelers to take their European dream
vacation, so they're looking at their own backyard paradise, with holidays that
include national parks and Hawaii," said Lonely Planet spokeswoman Christina
Tunnah.
"I think we'll see an increase in domestic travel and people looking for really
good deals -- for example, places where they can stay four nights and get a
fifth night free," said Ziff.
Fiona Lake Waslander, director of Yahoo Travel, predicted more trips to "small,
weekend-type destinations, with people staying closer to home and doing shorter
getaways." Lancaster, Pa., in Amish country, had the biggest gains in page views
among domestic destinations in 2007 on Yahoo Travel Guides.
Here are more details on travel in 2008.
Air travel
The year 2007 is on track to be the busiest ever. Domestic airlines carried a
record 582 million passengers January-September, 3.6 percent more than the same
period in 2006. Twenty-four percent of flights arrived late January-October, the
second-worst delays on record.
In 2008, if the system continues at capacity, "two-hour delays will become the
new normal," said David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association.
Federal regulators have proposed reducing the number of flights at JFK as a
first step in cutting delays. But that would decrease options for travel through
JFK, and airfares could go up as a result.
There will be more options on flights to London, though, when the Open Skies
Agreement takes effect March 28. It allows a half-dozen carriers to add direct
flights to Heathrow from Atlanta, JFK, Houston, Newark, Philadelphia, Dallas and
Los Angeles.
Passports
The State Department issued a record 18.4 million passports in fiscal year 2007,
compared with 12.1 million in 2006. Thirty percent of Americans now hold
passports, up from 27 percent.
The increase was spurred by new rules requiring passports for air travel to the
United States from Mexico, the Caribbean and Canada. Last summer, the time it
took to get a passport doubled to 12 weeks; countless vacations were ruined when
travelers didn't get their passports in time. The debacle led the State
Department to publicly apologize. Processing times are now back to normal (four
to six weeks); details at http://www.travel.state.gov/passport .
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is proposing that passports be required
for land and sea travel from the Caribbean, Canada and Mexico as early as summer
2008, but the plan is controversial and could be changed. (Other acceptable
documents would be the new passport card, due out in spring; enhanced driver's
licenses being pursued by several states; and "Trusted Traveler cards" from U.S.
Customs and Border Protection.) Cruisers may get an important exemption: a
proposal to allow U.S. citizens to sail to the Caribbean, Canada and Mexico
without passports if they depart from and return to the same U.S. port.
Europe
Travel to Europe by Americans was up 2 percent in the first nine months of 2007
compared with the same period in 2006, according to the U.S. Department of
Commerce.
But the weak dollar is having an impact. A U.S. Tour Operators Association
survey found more than 50 percent of members reporting European bookings had
dropped, some by as much as 20 percent.
"So many people have come back from Europe complaining about how weak their
dollar is," said Pauline Frommer, the travel writer and editor. She said more
travelers are seeking out alternative accommodations, such as renting rooms and
private homes: "It has to do with money, and it also has to do with the yearning
to get out of the cookie-cutter vacation and see a more authentic side."
Still, Italy was named the No. 1 international destination by the U.S. Tour
Operators Association for 2008, and Frommer says Italy is still the place
travelers ask about most often on the call-in radio show she hosts with her
father, Arthur Frommer.
Lisbon, Portugal, saw a 20 percent increase in American visitors in 2006, and
had the biggest increase of any international destination in page views on Yahoo
Travel Guides. "Lisbon is the last affordable European city and was our top
mover in 2007," said Waslander.
Ziff said the share of Travelocity bookings to Western Europe during the
Thanksgiving holiday were down 4.4 percent in 2007 compared with 2006. But
bookings to Eastern Europe are up more than 25 percent. "The Ukraine is up 11
percent; Lithuania, Latvia and Slovenia are getting an increase and starting to
register on my radar," Ziff said. "They're the next hot places."
Latin America
Travel by U.S. residents in the first nine months of this year was up 8 percent
to Central America and 7.6 percent to South America, according to the Commerce
Department.
Why the surge? The dollar goes farther in Latin America than in Europe, and "the
old image of South American countries -- dictatorships and machine guns -- is
gone," said Bob Whitley, president of the USTOA. "Instead, South America and
Central America are the new hot destinations."
Travelocity bookings show "Guatemala is up considerably; Panama is a trendsetter
destination; and with Nicaragua, people are getting curious about what's there,"
Ziff said.
Yahoo Travel also reports El Salvador among its up-and-coming destinations for
2008.
Canada
Although Canada was the No. 2 destination for U.S. travel abroad in 2006, the
number of Americans flying north continues to decrease, down 4 percent in 2006
and down 3.4 percent in the first nine months of 2007, according to Commerce
Department statistics. The strong Canadian dollar and new rules requiring
passports for air travel from Canada to the United States didn't help.
Still, with Vancouver hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics, Canada's Pacific
Northwest is on the radar for many travelers -- especially powder-hounds. Canada
made it on to Lonely Planet's top 10 list, and a Conde Nast Traveler reader
survey named Whistler No. 1 in the magazine's "Best Places to Ski & Stay in
North America."
Asia
Travel to Asia by U.S. residents was up 8.6 percent the first nine months of
2007. China was the 10th-most-visited country in 2006 by Americans traveling
abroad, according to the Commerce Department. And CoSport, the authorized ticket
broker for Beijing's 2008 Olympics, reports "high demand and limited supply" on
its Web site. As of mid-December, nothing but tickets for handball were
available to Americans.
Caribbean
Air travel to the Caribbean by U.S. residents was down 3.1 percent in the first
nine months of this year, according to the Commerce Department. The downturn
coincided with new rules requiring passports for re-entry to the United States
by air.
Vacation activities
"American consumers are sight-doing, not just sightseeing," said Whitley.
Frommer agreed: "Yes, you want to see the Louvre, but people are taking the time
to take a cooking class or a wine-tasting. In Paris you can even take a
Rollerblade tour. There's also a trend toward specialization on tours --
women-only tours, religious tours, even knitting tours." (Details at
http://www.pari-roller.com
and http://www.stitchawaytours.com .)
JWT, the largest ad agency in the United States (formerly J. Walter Thompson),
lists "climate sightseeing" as a top travel trend for 2008, meaning trips to see
phenomena threatened by climate change, such as glaciers in Alaska or polar
bears in Manitoba, Canada.
"More and more people want to relish these wonders while they still exist in
their current form," said Ann Mack, director of trendspotting for JWT. "And
there's a conversational currency that comes with that. You're a more intriguing
person the more obscure places you've been to."
The number of visitors to Alaska has increased steadily in the past two decades,
with 2 million visitors last summer, a 3 percent increase over the previous
year.
And "Kilimanjaro has been a recent hot destination because of its melting
glacier," said Waslander of Yahoo.
While National Geographic Expeditions tours are up 35 percent in the last year,
the number of travelers signing up for its Alaska trips increased by 63 percent;
Antarctica, 68 percent; and Arctic Norway, a polar bear-watching trip, has
doubled.
Year ahead
Here are some of the hot spots, trends and statistics for travel in 2008.
U.S. TOUR OPERATORS ASSOCIATION: For the fifth straight year, Italy placed first
as the most popular international destination for vacation packages and tours,
according to an annual informal poll of USTOA member companies. Croatia,
followed by China, were the hottest up-and-coming countries for tours and
packages.
YAHOO TRAVEL: Yahoo Travel's domestic "Movers & Shakers" -- destinations that
got the biggest increase in page views in Yahoo Travel Guides -- were Lancaster,
Pa.; Ocean City, N.J.; South Lake Tahoe; Wildwood, N.J.; Helen, Ga.; and Pigeon
Forge, Tenn.
LONELY PLANET: Top 10 destinations for 2008, according to a survey of the
guidebook publisher's U.S. staffers, are the United States, with an emphasis on
national parks and Hawaii; Mexico, with an emphasis on Mexico City and the
Pacific Coast; Argentina; Japan; India and Canada (tied); Australia and China
(tied); Spain; and France.
JWT TOP TRAVEL TRENDS: Top trends identified by JWT (formerly J. Walter
Thompson), the largest ad agency in the United States: "Staycations," where
travelers stay closer to home and take long weekends instead of weeks away;
cruising; volunteer vacations; climate sightseeing (visits to see phenomena
threatened by climate change); couch-surfing (using the Internet to find
strangers who will put you up in their home when you travel); medical tourism;
babymoons (where couples take a vacation before their first baby arrives); and
"trans-entertainment" (Wi-Fi transportation making it easier to watch videos or
surf the Web while traveling).
NATIONAL PARKS: The National Park system received 223.7 million recreation
visits January-September 2007, a 1.3 percent increase or 2.8 million more visits
than in 2006. The biggest gains were seen in the Golden Gate National Recreation
Area (up 437,000 recreational visits); the Saint Croix National Scenic Riverway
(in eastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin, up 281,000 visits); Lincoln
Memorial (in Washington, up 324,000 visits); the National World War II Memorial
(in Washington, up 245,000 visits); Yellowstone (in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho,
up 284,000 visits); and Yosemite (up 234,000 visits). |
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