Fuel Prices and the Great American Vacation

Now that summer’s officially over – my kids were annoyed by my obvious glee while shopping for school supplies – it’s time that we traditionally settle in for a stretch of homebody behavior. The Gals each had our own favorite trips this summer, as did, hopefully, a lot of Americans. Vacations are important to revive the spirit and create family memories, after all.

What with soaring gas prices and the increasingly unpleasant aspects of air travel making traveling with children more expensive (and more of a pain in the you-know-what), it’s not clear that so many of us did take those vacations, though.

The Times-Tribune reports that the summer vacation season was weak, with declines that correspond declines seen the rest of this past year. The article quotes Ela Voluck, a AAA spokesperson, as saying that “people are realizing that the end of cheap gasoline in the United States is over, and their habits and lifestyles will have to adapt.” The article goes on to reiterate what a lot of us already know: The popularity of road trips correlates negatively with fuel prices specifically, and the economy overall. Now, Hurricane Katrina really affected gas prices, and I’d bet Gustav and Ike may have as well. The US Energy Information Administration is predicting that crude oil prices will return to $120 a barrel in 2009

This is still NOT cheap, and Voluck may be right – as a country, we indeed need to get used to fuel prices being high. Naturally, the price of crude isn’t a stand-alone result of world oil supplies. It affects the prices of food, of electricity, and nearly every other home-related bill I can think of. The travel and tourism industry is watching with a wary eye, of course; vacation destination resorts and hotels have their own food, electricity (etc) bills as well. Hotels offer rebates and travel packages – these are usually found right on their websites. Hopefully, this will offset the higher “rack rate” prices we’ll see as a consequence of higher fuel costs. But who knows? Hotels have to turn a profit, like any industry, so management will have to raise prices. And of course, when people feel an economic pinch, vacations are one of the first things to go.

Is this the end of the Great American Vacation? Oh man, I sure hope not. A week to unwind from the stresses of work and the daily grind is more therapeutic than you may think, and seeing more of the world around us enriches our lives. There are plenty of ways to save money during troubled economic times. My once-daily Starbucks habit is already a thing of the past. But cutting out travel with my family? Hopefully, never. The memories family vacations create are just too important.