Travel in 2008: Shorter trips and closer to home

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Dec 30, 2007 | by Beth J. Harpaz Associated Press

NEW YORK -- 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 to the previous year, with Yosemite and Yellowstone adding more than a quarter-million visitors. Lonely Planet, the guidebook publisher, picked the U.S. 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 on Yahoo! Travel Guides among domestic destinations in 2007.

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 to 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 U.S. 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 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 to 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, like 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.