Recession - Good Time to Vacation

Recessions Come and Go, But Life Still Goes On
Recently the MSNBC website had a feature on “10 Reasons Why People should Travel Now.” They included all the traditional reasons such as celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, milestone life events, family reunions and the like.
The bottom line is that they were encouraging travel as a demonstration that life shouldn’t be postponed because statistically, nine out of ten of us has a job and most of us are doing quite well.
We observed that in the middle of last year many of our customers were putting travel and vacation plans on hold because they were being bombarded with news media reports that the sky was falling and the coming recession/depression might be cataclysmic. But, many of our savvy customers watched the cruise lines, airlines and land destinations lower prices to re-energize their marketplace. They saw that prices were falling to levels unseen for more than a decade, and they jumped on cruise and travel deals like never before.
This summer Alaska was slower booking than any time in the past 25 years. So great prices were available right up to the start of the season. Now, because of many sales and promotions by the cruise lines, the inventory of staterooms is dwindling and prices are starting to rise slightly. In fact, triples and quad staterooms are hard to find at whatever price! The same can be said for Europe, with the exception of Fall dates in the Mediterranean where great rates and availability still exists.
The cruise lines and land vacation destinations are now shifting to Fall and Winter promotions. Holiday specials can still be found, but are showing signs of starting to go away as more folks book these deals. Big new ship capacity in Southern California will keep prices low for the rest of 2009 and 2010 winter season.
No one can guarantee what the future might bring, but this is a great time to take advantage of lifetime travel and vacation opportunities.
Rich Skinner