AAA projects Labor Day weekend travel will drop 13.3% this year
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Americans are putting the brakes on Labor Day weekend travel plans this year, as economic strains combine with a quirk of the calendar.
AAA said about 39.1 million people will travel at least 50 miles from their homes between Thursday and Monday by car, plane and other means -- down 6 million, or 13.3%, from last year’s Labor Day weekend traveler tally.
A projected 4.74 million Californians will travel for the holiday weekend, down from about 5.44 million last year, the auto club said today in a report.
But, while fewer people are expected to travel this weekend, 2009 should still produce the third-busiest Labor Day weekend this decade, AAA said.
A total of 1,350 U.S. households were surveyed for the report about their holiday plans, the auto club said.
Though AAA is estimating that 2009’s holiday weekend will be calmer than 2008’s, this Labor Day should still end up with more people taking to the roads than Labor Day weekends from 2004 to 2007, the report said.
A big factor in the decreased travel estimate this year is Labor Day falling almost a full week later in 2009 than it did in 2008, AAA said. Also contributing to the projected slowdown is the fact that more children are back in school this late into the year, the report said.
But the lure of the last long summer weekend should temporarily dispel travelers’ worries about joblessness and school-overlap concerns, AAA said. Consumer confidence is also rising despite the recession, which could result in more people feeling free to travel, the report said.
Gasoline prices also are down compared with this time last year. The U.S. average price of a gallon of regular gasoline was $2.622 today, $1.05 less than a year ago, AAA said.
The survey for AAA’s 2009 Labor Day Travel Forecast was conducted by IHS Global Insight on behalf of the company.
-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles