Gasoline prices have begun creeping downward, a trend that’s expected to continue in the days before the summer travel season starts on Memorial Day weekend.
The average price for a gallon of unleaded fuel in the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett area was just under $2.45 on Friday, down 5 cents from a month ago, according to AAA’s daily price tracking service. In some parts of Snohomish County, prices had dropped below $2.40 a gallon.
While last year’s Memorial Day weekend brought record high prices, gas costs are expected to continue moving downward in the week ahead, said Janet Ray, spokeswoman for AAA’s regional office.
“This week’s conventional wisdom is that things probably won’t be spiking around Memorial Day – that we’ve already had the spike for this spring,” Ray said.
Even if that holds true, she added, prices still are about 10 cents above last Memorial Day’s peak.
Based on the vacation planning requests at AAA so far, Ray said, the high prices won’t deter most people from going out of town this summer.
“In fact, we’re finding that people are planning their summer travel just as in the past,” she said. The only concession to expensive fuel seems to be that some people are planning for trips somewhat closer to home, she added.
If that happens, Snohomish County’s tourism-related businesses could benefit.
“Generally, it will help,” said Amy Spain, interim director of the Snohomish County Tourism Bureau, explaining that many of the county’s visitors come from within the state. According to a 2003 report done for Washington State Tourism, 60 percent of overnight trips in Washington were made by state residents.
It would be a nice side effect if gas prices boosted stays at local hotels, said Sang Chae, owner of the Inn at Port Gardner. He said the occupancy rate at his Everett waterfront hotel is up about 30 percent so far this year.
“We’re having a banner year, and I don’t think it will slow down,” he said.
A trend toward more local tourism also could help boost business for the Everett-based Mosquito Fleet boats, which already have had a busy spring.
“At any given time, half of our business is from locals,” said Janis Smith, vice president of sales and marketing for Clipper Navigation Inc., which owns the tour boats and the Victoria Clipper.
While lower gas prices may help tourism, plenty of other industries are seeing adverse effects. Michael Gillie, owner of Snohomish’s NurseryTrees.com, said he’s had to raise the delivery charge for trees, shrubs and other plants.
“We deliver and plant trees all over the Puget Sound area, so we have a crew heading out each day in trucks,” he said.
Recent prices at the pump have convinced Gillie to buy a diesel vehicle that would get better fuel mileage, he said.
On Friday, crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange closed at $46.80 a barrel, a three-month low. Based on crude oil’s fall from above $55 a barrel, the federal Energy Information Administration is now predicting that the national average price for fuel this summer will hover around $2.17 – well below the $2.28 a gallon predicted last month.
On the other hand, oil prices probably will remain high enough to keep gasoline consistently above $2 a gallon through 2006, the agency added.
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
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