AAA is expecting excellent Labor Day travel weekend

The American Automobile Association is expecting that the number of Americans taking a trip during the three-day weekend associated with Labor Day will represent close to a double-digit increase over the number doing so in 2009. The drivers organization says it expects 34.4M travelers to venture at least 50 miles from home, compared to only 31.3M who did so last year.

That represents a 9.9% increase, an impressive ratio in the midst of an economy that has gained some stability on the bottom end but has yet to make great strides back to normalcy.

Labor Day falls on Monday 9/6/10 this year. AAA considers the preceding Thursday, 9/2/10, to be the starting point of the last summer-themed getaway weekend of the year.

“While media reports on the state of the U.S. economy are mixed, many Americans are still interested in taking one more trip as the summer travel season comes to a close,"  said Glen MacDonell, director, AAA Travel Services.  "It is encouraging to see more Americans planning to travel to visit family, friends and exciting vacation destinations.”

MacDonell added, “AAA travel agents are continuing to report strong increases in the number of travelers making advanced reservations. Hotel, car and vacation package reservations for the upcoming Labor Day weekend are up over ten percent compared to last year.”

AAA says that despite sluggish improvement in employment figures, an increase in GDP and a drop in consumer debt appear to be fueling the rise in Labor Day travel.

The organization reported, “Trips by automobile are expected to increase in popularity with 91% of travelers, or 31.4M people, reaching their destination by driving. This is an increase of 10.3% from last Labor Day when 28.5M travelers went by motor vehicle.  Barring any major tropical storm activity in the Gulf Coast region, AAA expects the national average price of self-serve regular gasoline to be between $2.65 and $2.75 per gallon during this holiday weekend.”

Long trips are not a big part of the picture, but even there AAA sees improvement over last year. “Leisure air travel is expected to account for just 5% of overall travel with 1.62M holiday flyers,” observed AAA. “This is an increase of 4.6% from one year ago when 1.54 million flew. Trips by other modes, including rail, bus and watercraft, will be the dominant means of travel used by four percent of all travelers.”

RBR-TVBR observation: There is obviously a certain amount of incentive for long distance carriers, like airlines, to buy some last minute advertising, but the real opportunities for a quick hitter campaign would seem to be any business catering to automobile services, and even more to the point, any business catering to the tourist trade that is within driving distance of your market. If we were two-to-five hours from a major resort area, we would be suggesting that businesses in those resort areas make themselves known to our loyal audience before they make reservations and start driving.

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