AAA’s Memorial Day weekend forecast for the Washington region is “gridlock and a seemingly endless convoy of brake lights.”
Nearly 800,000 area residents are expected to hit the road this holiday weekend, with the auto club saying falling gas prices will fuel the biggest Memorial Day travel surge since the recession took hold five years ago.
Gas prices around the District have fallen an average of 32 cents a gallon over the past month and now sit well below last Memorial Day’s price of $3.95, according to AAA Mid-Atlantic spokesman John Townsend.
| How will they travel? | ||||||
| Mode of travel | Number of area vacationers | Change from 2011 | ||||
| Car | 783,500 | ?1.9 percent | ||||
| Plane | 64,000 | ?-5 percent | ||||
| Other (rail/bus) | 27,600 | ?22.2 percent | ||||
| How much will they spend? | ||||||
| Round-trip airfare | $189 | ?-7 percent | ||||
| Three-diamond hotels | $160 a night | ?8 percent | ||||
| Weekday car rental | $36 | ?-4 percent | ||||
| Source: AAA Mid-Atlantic | ||||||
“I think consumers will see that and it will encourage them to travel,” he said. “Now that gas prices are heading in the opposite direction, we’re expecting the highest number of travelers since 2006 — that’s before the Great Recession.”
Townsend expects 17,000 additional vacationers from the Washington area, for an increase of 1.9 percent from 2011’s total. Though road travel is expected to rise nearly 2 percent and rail and bus travel a “staggering” 22 percent, air travel at all three local airports is expected to fall by 5 percent this year.
Nationwide, AAA is predicting 34.8 million Americans will travel this holiday weekend, up a half-million from last year.
Carol Everhart, president of the Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce, said the Delaware cities are prepared to receive many of the D.C.-area vacationers, as she has already seen an increase in property rentals and requests for travel information.
Though she is anticipating a “very strong visitation season,” economic impact from these visitors is harder to predict. Everhart said the beach towns saw more tourists last year as well but that financial hardships forced many to spend less once they arrived.
Said Everhart: “We just never know how they’re going to spend till they get here.”
