Fewer Americans traveling for vacations this year

NEW YORK -- The number of vacationing Americans will be down this summer, according to a new AP-GfK Poll, and a third of Americans surveyed said they have already canceled at least one trip this year because of financial concerns.

Overall, the survey found only 42 percent of Americans plan a leisure trip this summer, down from the 49 percent who said they planned to take a summer trip in an AP-Ipsos poll conducted in May 2005.

The less money you make, the less likely you are to take a vacation. More than two-thirds of those in the $100,000-plus bracket will take some type of leisure trip this summer, compared to 48 percent of those earning $50,000-$100,000 and just one-third of those with family incomes under $50,000.

Twelve percent of those planning a trip said they would stay in their home state, 67 percent will go to another state and 19 percent will travel outside the U.S. The poll also found that 20 percent of those planning a trip this summer will stay closer to home this year due to economic worries, while 23 percent will save money by staying with friends or family instead of a hotel.

Despite the downturn, travel bargains are tempting a small number of people -- mostly upper-income -- to take bigger and better trips. Seven percent of all Americans and 18 percent of those earning more than $100,000 said they would take more elaborate trips than usual because of lower prices.

The poll was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media from April 16-20 by landline and cell phone telephone interviews with a nationally representative random sample of 1,000 adults. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

In Las Vegas, tourism boosters are projecting continued declines in the amount of room taxes collected, which suggests they expect the slump to persist.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority projects it will collect about $180 million in room and gambling taxes in the upcoming fiscal year, a 19.6 percent decline from the 2008 fiscal year.

Tax revenue from tourists and business travelers has been in a free fall this year, dropping 25 percent in February and 36 percent in March, according to the authority.

Michael Zaletel of the hotel-booking Web site www.i4Vegas.com says advance bookings are up 30 percent from this time last year, when oil was racing toward $150 per barrel and the economy was about to nose-dive.

He says summer bookings are driven by room rates that are down more than 30 percent from last year.

"I think there are just really good deals out there and people are booking in advance and trying to get those deals while they can," Zaletel said. "Hotels are being more aggressive further out."

In the past, hotels were gutsier when it came to holding room rates up as long as possible and dropping them only at the last moment.

Now, according to Zaletel, they're just trying to lock in as many room nights as they can.

"They're saying 'let's get these rooms sold,' " he said. "It is excellent for the consumer right now."

At McCarran International Airport, traffic has been in decline since November, 2007. Aviation department officials expect the trend to continue.

"We anticipated that 2009 would be a down year all year," airport director Randall Walker said in a recent interview.

Like the convention and visitors authority, the airport is funded mostly by leisure and business travelers to Las Vegas.

"We have planned for another reduction in revenue," Walker said.

But booking windows are also shorter than in the past, meaning customers are making decisions to travel closer to the departure date, which makes forecasting demand difficult.

"What we're seeing in Vegas is what we are seeing across our system. That is a close-in booking window," said Brad Hawkins, a spokesman for Southwest Airlines.

While other airlines, most notably US Airways, have cut service dramatically to Las Vegas, Southwest has kept most of its flights. Hawkins says the airline is betting low prices will juice demand, eventually.

"When consumers find the right price they are jumping on it. We expect planes to be very full this summer," he said.

Arch Woodside, a professor of marketing at Boston College who specializes in tourism, described the overall decrease in summer travel as "a substantial drop" that will have a significant impact on the industry, especially in places like Florida and New York City, where tourism is big business.

Woodside said travel could shrink even more next year as new economic realities sink in.

"Most people unconsciously maintain their lifestyles immediately after a big drop in their economic well-being: an 'I'm going to be all right' response," Woodside said. "The impact of their new lower economic reality becomes conscious reality in the second year following a big change."

Review-Journal writer Benjamin Spillman contributed to this report.