Surveys Contradict Each Other On Whether Travel Will Be Good This Summer
Yearly, there are a bunch of polls coming out predicting how summer travel would be. Well, like any other year, there are a lot of them, but 3 contradicting surveys caught the attention of many:
- AAA’s that say that the traditional opening of season of summer travel, Memorial Day Weekend, will have a little travel increase of around 1.5 percent.
- Deliotte’s that roughly 29 percent of Americans will be enjoying this year’s Memorial Day Weekend with a vacation, 5 percent higher than last year’s. They also say that 64 percent of Americans will revel in a summer trip.
- AP-GfK’s poll says that only 42 percent of the population is planning to travel this summer, far from 2005’s 49 percent.
- The Associated Press only said that less Americans will be traveling this summer compared to four years ago. They had no exact number on how many actually traveled in the summer of 2005. We are then left to assume that they did not have a follow up to confirm their prediction.
- Deloitte on the other hand says that last year’s Memorial Day weekend celebration is down because of the unaffordable gas prices and is further proven by low rates of hotel occupancy and other information about other various means of travel. Deloitte is planning to evaluate this year’s summer travel predictions after the Labor Day weekend and last Memorial Day travel early next month.
- AAA travel admits that their forecast missed the actual numbers by half a point. But they are proud that they were able to verify their accuracy with the help of their new partner in research.
The incongruity may be explained by comparing the entire months of summer from the 3-day long Memorial weekend. Then, AP-GfK used years for comparison, while Deloitte used a year-to-year comparison.
Travel establishments put up surveys to know the demand for the season. The higher demand, the higher prices will go; the lesser the travelers, the better the prices will be.
This means that the cost of your most awaited summer travel depends between the 42 and the 64 percent of the population that will travel this summer (according to AP-GfK and Deliotte).
So, we asked the 3 organizations on how they came up with their numbers and how can they assure accuracy.
But if we’re looking at what is really going on around us, Deloitte may be the closest— many will be traveling again this summer.
Gas prices are lower. Because a lot of Americans did not take their vacation last year, they may have saved more for this year’s summer travel season. And with the recession, great summer travel destinations like Vegas and Hawaii are cheap this year. With almost every aspect opening up a better chance for travel this year, no one would not in their homes this summer.
