Vacations will cost more this year

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — About a third of Americans say the rising price of gasoline has caused them to cut back on vacation plans, change how they travel or even cancel trips, an Associated Press poll suggests.

But Jerry Cheskes of the AAA says whether people travel or not is "psychological factor. If you calculate the cost of the average Memorial Day trip, you’re talking pennies rather than dollars."

He said he thinks "the American traveler is very resilient. They will look for ways to take the trip they want to take."

Mona Whorton, 38, of McCall, Idaho, said gas prices are forcing changes in her travel plans and her everyday plans.

"We’re going to take one vacation instead of two. We wanted to go to California this year, but we’re not going to go," she said.

The number of people who expect to take no vacation — 15 percent — has tripled since May 1999, and the number who will travel by car has dropped below half, according to the poll, conducted for the AP by ICR of Media, Pa.

The poll suggested the biggest effect of the rise in gas prices was to cause 17 percent of people to cut back their vacation plans. An additional 8 percent said it would cause them to change their type of transportation, and 5 percent said they had canceled their vacations because of pump prices.

Almost a fourth who plan to travel by car said they would reduce their leisure travel.

"I’m going to cut back my vacation plans because of the prices," said Mike Durham, 47, of Richmond, Ind., who is married with three sons. "I don’t mean shorten the time, shorten how far I’m going to go. I’d planned to drive to northern Minnesota or Canada, but we’ll probably will have to stay within 100 miles of home."

Travel officials predicted some cutbacks as gas prices surged throughout the spring — with the price of regular unleaded gas increasing more than 16 cents a gallon in the past month to more than $1.70 per gallon on average nationwide as of Thursday. The Seattle-Everett-Bellevue area average was about $1.62. By comparison, a gallon of unleaded gas in Britain costs $4.26 and in Japan $3.24.

Officials with travel organizations such as AAA say they do not expect the travel industry to go into a tailspin because of cutbacks, and they note that alternative vacations such as cruises have been getting a lot of interest.

Surveys by the travel industry also indicate that concerns about rising gas prices could cause some people to cut back or cancel their travel plans.

The AP poll of 1,008 people was taken May 16 through Sunday and has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

People who made more than $75,000 a year were most likely to travel by plane, with more than half saying they would fly on vacation. People who made less than $50,000 were more likely to drive than fly by a 2-1 margin.

One in five said they expect to spend less on their vacation this year, double the number who felt that way two years ago.