Gas is a buck more than a year ago at this time, but that’s not stopping people from fulfilling their year-end travel plans.
In fact, even more people are traveling this holiday season when compared to last year, despite the higher price for fuel. Beth Mosher is with Triple-A.
“Gas prices are up just about a dollar over where they were last year and even though that’s a pretty considerable increase gas prices still in Wisconsin are hovering right around the $2.60 mark. So we really don’t see gas prices as having an effect on people’s decisions to travel one way or another. They’re just not high enough for people to cancel that trip that they’ve been looking forward to.”
The auto club believes gasoline prices won’t have much of an impact on year-end travel because the average cost of self-serve regular remains well below $3.00 per gallon ($2.57).
Meanwhile, not everyone has family gatherings in mind. Mosher says, despite the bad economy, some folks are squeezing in one last leisure trip.
“We’re also seeing a number of people fly to warm places to take the last end-of-the-year vacation.”
According to AAA, Americans are expected to spend approximately $1,000 per household on travel during the Christmas-New Year period — mostly on transportation and transportation-related expenses. Travelers will average almost 800 miles in their round trip this holiday weekend.
Triple-A is projecting almost 90 million Americans will be traveling 50 miles or more away from home during the year-end holidays. That’s 3.8% more than last year. About 1.7 million Wisconsinites will travel, that’s up just over 10.5% from last year.
(12/28/09 – Added link to show chart of gas price history.)
Jackie Johnson 1:32