High prices impact travel

The cost of traveling - for hotels, rental cars and airline tickets, as well as the all-too-familiar spike in gasoline - is up. So how crowded will the roads and skies be this summer? It might depend on whether you drive or fly - and whether you're staying in the U.S. or going abroad.

The coming Memorial Day weekend is supposed to pave the way for a solid summer season, where leisure trips of 50 miles or more will increase 1.4 percent to 329.6 million from June through August, the Travel Industry Association says.

Yet the percentage of Americans planning a vacation within the next six months - 40.4 percent in April - was near a 30-year low, according to the Conference Board's latest consumer confidence and buying plans survey. Reflecting the state of gas prices, the number of people planning to drive on vacation also was near a 30-year low, according to the survey of 5,000 consumers, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.4 percentage points.

But air travel plans remained at a healthy 19.1 percent - just 3.5 percent below the all-time high set in the same month of 1998.

Despite the dollar's weakness, 9.9 percent of Americans had plans to visit a foreign country - the fourth-highest reading in 30 years.

"I'm paying for this - but it's worth it," Marci Morgan, a 23-year-old law student from West Chester, said before she caught a flight to Rome on Friday with her University of Dayton classmate, Susan Suriano. They planned tourist stops on a 16-day trip through Italy while studying international human rights issues for their school.

Morgan and other local residents catching overseas flights out of Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport said they're concerned about rising costs - but not enough to alter their plans.

Gerlinde and Stefan Schmitt of Loveland were catching a flight to Frankfurt on Friday. They fly back to their native Germany to visit family and friends each year.

Usually, they would fly in the off-season, but this year, they wanted to celebrate Stefan's parents' birthdays in May. Still, while the scientist and quality assurance executive can afford to make the more expensive trip, they lament that U.S. gas prices are resembling European ones more and more. European countries heavily tax fuel.

"We're spoiled here because gas was so nice compared to Europe," she said.

Still, costs appear to have the most impact on domestic plans.

The Conference Board said the share of people planning to visit U.S. destinations - 32.9 percent - was the lowest recorded since its bimonthly survey began in 1978. The percentage of people planning to travel by car on their vacation - 20.9 percent - was the second-lowest in the survey's history.

WILL DRIVERS ALTER THEIR HABITS?
Some experts say U.S. travel could be vulnerable if gas prices continue to climb.

Tom Kloza, an analyst with the Oil Price Information Service, said several parts of the country are reaching a "tipping point" of $3.25 a gallon for regular unleaded where he predicts motorists will put the brakes on their driving habits and possibly their travel plans.

Kloza noted that chains in Western states are noticing sales "flattening" as consumers paying $3.30 to $3.40 a gallon alter buying habits.

OTHER TRAVEL COSTS UP, TOO
While gas prices are in the spotlight, travelers and tourists must also contend with several other higher costs.

U.S. hotels were charging an average daily rate that's 6.1 percent more during the first three months of this year, according to Smith Travel Research; average airline ticket prices were $378 in the U.S. by the end of 2006 - the highest in six years, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics; and the car rental industry is grappling with fallout from ailing automakers that no longer want to flood them with cheap fleet vehicles.

The Travel Industry Association's Travel Price Index for April said total travel costs were up 2.8 percent for the year so far - with only intercity transportation costs faring cheaper than last year, with a 0.3 percent decline.

Suzanne Cook, senior vice president of research for the association, conceded in her report that high gas prices will force 11 percent of travelers to make some changes in their vacation plans this summer - such as staying at cheaper hotels, dining at less-expensive restaurants and shaving a day or two off a trip's duration.

Still, she contended that "the real tipping point" is $3.50 a gallon - adding that a third of those surveyed said they would cancel vacation plans at that point.

"The majority of consumers expect to continue to see high gas prices this summer, but they seem to be taking it much more in stride," she wrote.