Holiday Travel Likely to Increase This Year

AAA predicts a 3.1% increase in national holiday travel this year over last year. That estimate includes 70,000 more Pennsylvanians who may travel this year due to a brighter economic outlook.

AAA East-Central Director of Travel Ruth Nagy says many people postponed or canceled their holiday trips last year, so there is pent-up demand for vacations more than 50 miles.

Nagy says the travel industry has slowly been gaining speed since a large travel decrease in 2009.

“We saw double-digit drops in travel, so although we’ve had increases for the holidays in 2010, we still aren’t matching the 2008 travel numbers, because in 2009 we dropped so drastically,” says Nagy.

Nagy says modest economic improvements have also allowed the average distance and spending of trips to increase as well.

As usual, most of this year’s travelers are predicted to go by car, with airline travel coming in a distant second place.