Fifteen hundred down, four thousand to go.
Your “ballots” from our April 23 survey of Travel section readers are in, and we’re reading as fast as we can.
Although a research firm has tabulated responses to most of our questions, we included four fill-in-the-blank questions (favorite place you’ve visited; your dream vacation; pet travel peeves; and general comments on travel or the Travel section) on which responses were too varied and complicated to be tabulated.
So the Travel staff’s editors (that’s me and two associates) are plowing through your comments on these four questions. Eventually, we intend to read every single one of the 5,500-plus responses we received.
But here’s a preliminary report on those four questions, plus some of the tabulated results from the rest of the survey.
The favorite place you’ve visited? Hawaii. No contest here.
Other favorites (roughly in order of preference, so far): Florida (including Disney World), England (including London), U.S. national parks, France (including Paris), California, African safaris, Mexico, Ireland, Alaska, Italy, Arizona and Nevada (including Las Vegas).
By regions, almost half of your “favorites” were in the United States, another quarter were in Europe, followed by the Caribbean, Asia, North America (excluding the U.S. and Caribbean), Africa, Oceania (including Australia and New Zealand), South America and–finally, and not surprisingly–Antarctica.
Your dream vacation? Dreams are usually more exotic than reality, so it’s no surprise that your picks here were more exotic (i.e., farther away, more offbeat, more expensive). And the winner?
Hawaii, again. (Many readers said Hawaii was both the favorite place they’ve visited and their dream destination for another trip.)
Hawaii was followed by France/Paris, another destination that many travelers have been to, yet still dream about, and Australia, which relatively few had actually visited.
Bunched together, somewhat behind those Big Three, were, in alphabetical order: Alaska, China, England/London, Europe in general, French Polynesia (Tahiti, Bora Bora, Moorea), Germany, Greece, Italy and New Zealand. Various types of around-the-world trips also were very popular dreams.
By regions, your dream vacations were almost half European, followed by Oceania and the U.S. (though most of these were Hawaii or Alaska–few chose places close to home), then Asia. Africa and the Caribbean were next, with other North America destinations, South America and, again, Antarctica bringing up the rear.
Your pet travel peeves? Though a small percentage of you swore you loved everything about travel, more than half of you swore–literally, in some cases–that airplanes, airlines and airports were instruments of travel torture.
Among these air grievances, easily the biggest was the lack of comfort in coach–particularly the tight seating. Other big irritations in this area: delays, people with too many carry-ons, waiting in lines, lost baggage, baggage delays, air-fare pricing–and airports in general.
Away from the airport, your biggest complaint was rudeness–ugly Americans abroad, ugly American travelers at home, surly “service” people and rudeness in general. The natives must be friendly, though; few of you cited rudeness by locals, either in the U.S. or abroad.
Other major areas of complaint: waiting in general, people who complain that things aren’t the same as at home, people who travel with small kids (especially those who don’t keep them under control), hotels (especially dirty rooms) and . . . getting there (“I wish I could just tweek my nose like Samantha on `Bewitched’ and be there,” wrote one reader).
Additional comments on travel or the Travel section? Some used this for philosophical questions/comments on travel in general. But most of you used this space to comment on the section. Modesty forbids detailing those comments, and except for a very few sourpusses (you know who you are), we thank you.
Many of you also added comments on what you wanted in the Travel section, and what you said you wanted most was more budget travel, more family travel, more (and more detailed) maps, more weekend trips, more about the U.S., more about foreign countries . . . more of, well, everything.
The rest of the survey
Now, for some actual figures from the main part of our survey, which was tabulated by Com-Sci Research in Northbrook.
But first a few words of caution: The results shown here are not representative of the entire readership of either the Tribune or the Travel section. This is, in survey research lingo, a “self-selected sample”–in other words, those most interested in the subject (travel, in this case) are those most likely to spend the time (and 32-cent stamp) to respond. So what we have here are the opinions of those readers who are most passionate about travel.
Those who responded tended to be older and wealthier than the average reader–which makes sense, since these are the people who do proportionately the most traveling. More than half of our responses, 54 percent, came from readers 50 or older; 21 percent of the respondents had household income of more than $100,000.
So keeping all of this in mind, here are some of the more interesting findings:
– The U.S. destinations, outside the Midwest, visited by 10 percent or more of our respondents in the last 12 months: Florida, excluding the Orlando and Miami/Ft.Lauderdale areas (28%); Las Vegas (22%); Arizona (20%); Orlando (18%); Washington, D.C. (18%); California, excluding Los Angeles and San Francisco (17% ); Los Angeles (16%); New York City (16%); Colorado (15%); San Francisco (15%); Miami/Ft. Lauderdale (14%); Texas (13%); the West, excluding California, Nevada, Colorado, Oregon and Washington (12%); Atlanta (11%); and New Orleans (10%).
– The most-visited Midwest destinations: Wisconsin, excluding Milwaukee, the Dells and Door County (35%); Illinois, excluding Chicago and Galena (32%); Michigan (31%); Midwest, excluding Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin (31%); Indiana (26%); Milwaukee (22%); Galena (17%); Door County (13%); and Wisconsin Dells (11%).
– The most-visited destinations outside the 48 contiguous states in the last three years: Europe (44%); Canada (26%); Caribbean, excluding Bahamas and Puerto Rico (26%); Hawaii (20%); Mexico, excluding Acapulco and Cancun/Cozumel (16%); Cancun/Cozumel (15%); Alaska (12%); Bahamas (12%); Puerto Rico (10%); and Japan/China/Far East (10%).
– The most-popular types of vacations taken in the last year: beach (44%); adventure (29%); walking/hiking (28%); learning (27%); cruising (25%); gambling (25%); scuba/snorkeling (13%); camping (12%); golfing (11%); and skiing (10%).
– The median amount of money spent on leisure travel in the last year was $4,000-$4,999 (22 percent of you reported spending $7,500 or more last year; 2 percent of our respondents said they spent under $500).
– Slightly less than half, 47 percent, said they had taken a packaged tour in the last three years.
– Eighty percent of our respondents used a travel agent in the last year–and 64 percent of those who did so were very satisfied (28 percent were somewhat satisfied, 6 percent not very satisfied and 1 percent not at all satisfied).
– More of you (or at least those of you who filled out our survey) used an airplane (92%) than a car (83%) to get to your destination in the last year.
– Fifty-six percent took three or more weekend trips in the last year: 19 percent took two, 13 percent took one and 12 percent took none.
– Of the items we listed (children’s activities, weather, cost, cultural activities, food, ease of planning, shopping, sports activities, convenience of reaching location), cost was picked by 81 percent as an important factor in selecting a destination. The weather was next at 74 percent; children’s activities were least important (11%).
– Although 91 percent traveled with another adult in the last three years, 41 percent also made at least one trip alone in the same period. (Remember that business trips are included in these figures.)
– More on more: Seventy-six percent wanted more information on weekend trips, 67 percent wanted more on hotel ratings and budget travel, 62 percent wanted more on Midwest places. But, then, more than 75 percent of you wanted the same or more information on 19 of the 22 topics we listed.
– You-Can’t-Please-Everyone Dept.: The only three categories of travel stories that more than 25 percent of you wanted less of were skiing (48%), cruising (34%) and business travel (32%). (But, no–we won’t be dropping our ski or cruise issues. Both subjects still have a large and hard-core following, though obviously they’re not for everyone.)
– We offered you a number of statements about the travel section and asked to what degree you agreed or disagreed on a scale of 1 to 9. Of those statements, you agreed most strongly that “I prefer to read about places I will probably visit” (45%) and most strongly disagreed that there are “not enough articles about family travel” (15%). Adding together all degrees of agreement or disagreement, the statement you most agreed with to one degree or another was that the Travel section “has informative articles” (94%); the one you most disagreed with, from mildly to strongly, was “the articles are too short” (57%).
– And, finally, 98 percent of you said you’d miss the Travel section if it were not included in the Tribune.
Thanks again. We plan to stick around.
