A colleague popped into the office, flopped into an empty chair, sighed and asked:
”Where can I go for a weekend to just get away? Someplace within a couple hours` drive. Someplace quiet, but someplace where, if I want something in the middle of the afternoon, there`ll be someone there to get it for me.” He was clearly stressed-out and looking for a few days` relaxation, a chance to recharge his nearly spent creative batteries. I made a
recommendation, and he went off in search of a reservation.
His was the type of request that travel agents have been hearing with increasing frequency for some time now, as leisure travelers seek shorter, more frequent vacations.
Last year, for example, vacations of from one to three nights away from home accounted for 51 percent of domestic leisure trips, according to the U.S. Travel Data Center, the research affiliate of the Travel Industry Association of America.
That represented a record-high percentage for short-term trips, said Scott M. Dring, a Data Center spokesman. It was also an 8.5 percent increase over 1990, the year of the previous high, when one- to three-night trips made up 47 percent of domestic leisure travel.
The trend is definitely up for these quick getaways. And it`s been moving in that direction for a number of years. Industry observers generally cite 1985 as the beginning of the growth in popularity of shorter, more frequent vacations.
”It`s a trend that we`ve seen in the past, but it`s accelerating,” said Dring.
One of the big reasons for this acceleration is, of course, the current recession. (Some economists say the recession has ended and we are now in
”recovery.” Many of them are the same folks who refused to admit the country was in a recession until we were a good six months into it.)
But the economic downturn has worked in strange-and sometimes contradictory-ways. At first blush, one is tempted to make the assumption that, sure, fewer people working, with fewer bucks to spend on vacations, equals shorter vacations.
According to Dring, however, the opposite was true during the last major recession (1981-82), when people actually took longer vacations and traveled farther. However, the trips were less frequent; it seems that people eliminated some of their weekend traveling and took one or two long vacations. But this time around, Dring said, the opposite happened.
”There were a lot of changes in travel characteristics last year,” he said. ”People stayed closer to home, took more (but) shorter trips, used their automobiles more and did more economical traveling, such as visiting relatives or going to nearby beaches or mountains.” Dring said that automobile travel accounted for 84 percent of leisure trips last year.
But the recession also has prompted taking shorter vacations in more subtle ways.
During the boom times of the `80s, one of the reasons for the predilection for shorter vacations was the fact that more households had two breadwinners. People were marrying later, having children later and vacationing less than their relatively high joint incomes would have otherwise allowed.
In addition, it was often difficult for two-earner families to coordinate their vacations.
For example, a teacher can`t take a week or two off in midwinter to visit Acapulco as easily as his or her spouse, who is a computer programmer or sales manager.
When the economic squeeze came, many two-earner families suddenly became one-earner families. And that doesn`t leave a lot of money for extensive travel.
But, perhaps even more important, the one earner who is left may find himself or herself unable to get the time off for a long vacation.
As businesses and governments continue to lay off workers, the workload on those who remain employed increases. The result? Fewer people can be spared from the workplace for long periods.
A few days off, a long weekend? Fine, no problem. Two or three weeks at one shot? Sorry, not this year, not right now. We need you.
Then, too, one of the results of that sort of workplace pressure is the need to get away from the place more often-not unlike my harried, weary colleague. Of course, none of this has escaped the folks in the travel industry.
”In terms of marketing, that trend (to shorter vacations) drove the market,” said Dring. ”The industry is marketing shorter-duration vacations, more weekend travel, as well as more economical travel.”
One area of the industry where that is becoming increasingly evident is the cruise business. The major cruise lines have continued to add three- and four-day packages to their itineraries as demand has increased.
”The six-to-eight-day cruise is still the leading segment of the industry,” said a spokeswoman for the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA). ”But the two-to-five-day segment is solid and growing, representing 37.4 percent of cruises (by North American passengers) last year. That`s up from 32.8 in 1987. It`s been increasing little by little each year.”
The long-weekend and short midweek cruises are the fastest-growing segment of the industry, up 300 percent in the last 10 years, according to CLIA figures.
Pricing is part of the appeal. An overbuilt cruise industry has been attempting to fill its empty berths with mini-cruises that come in under $500, including round-trip air.
The short cruises have been most successful in the Bahamas and the Caribbean, where a three-day cruise can give you a peek at two islands, and a five-day sail can land you on three or even four islands. You can also get short cruises to Mexico or along the coast of Alaska from the Seattle-Vancouver area.
Then there are the two-night ”cruises to nowhere” that have become particularly popular sailings from major ports along the East Coast, including Philadelphia.
The brand-new Majesty Cruise Line, which will begin life with the launch of its $220 million MV Royal Majesty this summer, will be offering two-night cruises to nowhere from Philadelphia (phone 800-532-7788) as well as Boston, New York and Charleston, S.C. After that round of introductory cruises, the ship will sail to its home port of Miami to begin its regular schedule of
(surprise!) three- and four-night cruises to the Bahamas and Key West.
The cruise industry is not alone in promoting shorter vacations. Travel agencies, motorcoach tour operators, resorts, spas and even downtown hotels are all packaging short getaways.
And, unless the economy improves markedly in the next month or so, the choice of short-term vacation offerings will expand even more during the peak summer vacation period.
”It`s hard to predict what the economy is going to do,” said the Data Center`s Dring. ”But if the economy stays flat, I think it`s fair to say we`ll see this trend (the growth in shorter vacations) continue. And the industry will market to that.”
