The fall travel season encompassing
September, October and November will be rather cool, especially
when compared with last fall, according to the Travel Industry
Association's (TIA) seasonal forecast.
By the time the
fall season ends, the TIA is projecting, travelers will take 279.4
million person-trips of 50 miles or more one way from
home.
That's 1.1% less
than the 282.6 million person-trips taken in fall 2004, which was
one of best fall travel seasons in recent years.
To understand the
reason for the difference between fall 2005 and fall 2004, one only
needs to look at the newspaper.
"The combination of
soaring gas prices, Hurricane Katrina, a weak job outlook and shaky
consumer confidence set the tone for a relatively weak fall travel
season," Suzanne Cook, the TIA's senior vice president of research,
said in a statement.
Nevertheless,
overall, fall travel has been trending up during the last four
years.
Indeed, if the
279.4 million person-trips projected for this fall proves accurate,
it will be the second-highest fall travel season since 2000 in
terms of person-trips.
And given all the
bad news, Cook said, "the fact that we were able to sustain the
record level of travel seen last fall is good news for the
industry."
The TIA's forecast
predicted that travelers will make 225.3 million individual leisure
trips, compared with 229 million last fall.
While leisure
travel is expected to dip, business trips are projected to rise
slightly.
The TIA is
forecasting travelers will take 43.8 million business trips of 50
miles or more one way from home this fall. That's up from the 43.4
million taken in the fall of 2004.
Nevertheless, the
TIA noted, fall business travel remains far below the 47.9 million
individual trips recorded in 2000.