US northeast holiday travel to decline

AAA is expecting the number of people taking trips during the US Memorial Day holiday in the northeast to decline noticeably this year, by around 2.5 percent, which includes both those travelling by ground as well as by air transportation. Pennsylvania may be especially hard hit by the drop in tourism, but the northeast region as a whole is expected to see 5.8 million people on the roads during the holiday. The number of air travellers, however, is likely to be much lower, with about 545,000 expected to take to the skies during the weekend. This places the northeast US near the bottom of the list when it comes to the number of travellers, with only the Midwest likely to post a poorer performance.

One of the problems for flyers seems to be the dramatically rising cost of airfare. Nearly all ticket prices have gone up since last year, mainly due to higher fuel surcharges. For instance, while most people would have paid around $129 to fly from Philadelphia to Miami in 2007, this figure now stands closer to $155, thus representing an increase of nearly 20 percent. Additionally, AAA also found that the price of a car rental is now higher than it was last year, with the average cost going up from around $31 to $45 per day.

Catherine L. Rossi of AAA observed that an increasing number of Americans are feeling the burden of the so-called credit crunch, as well as from the high cost of fuel, both of which are making some reconsider their holiday plans.

www.aaa.com