Pack your bags.

There's never been a better time for travel bargains! By Debbie Gardner PRIME Editor It started quietly back last December. Every few weeks I'd get an e-mail advertising a specially-priced vacation package to some formerly hot travel destination. Then those e-mails started showing up weekly, sometimes daily. There were two-for-one cruise specials. Promises of free airfare with trip purchase. My choice of free spa treatments with hotel bookings. And the one that almost got me and my family to book a trip a free dining package and free extra nights if we booked a Disneyland or Disney World vacation of just four nights. Even Canyon Ranch, the famed Lenox, Massachusetts, spa retreat I had visited and written about a few years back, sent me a personalized letter letting me know it was okay to spend money taking care of myself. With all these deals and promotions, I began to wonder about the health of the travel industry. If they're trying so hard to entice people to part with their hard-earned money, does that mean people just aren't traveling right now? The big travel picture It seems I was getting those enticing deals for a reason. According to statistics posted on March 19 by the Bureau of Economic analysis, total current spending on travel and tourism declined by 22.2 percent in 2008, the first yearly decline in travel spending since 2001. In specifics, the drop in travel dollars spent on air transportation declined for three straight quarters in 2008, falling another 13 percent in the third quarter after a 20 percent drop earlier in the year. Accommodations spending fell 10 percent in the same quarter, and vacation-related shopping by travellers plunged 11.6 percent. In 2008 total tourism-related spending in the U. S. was recorded at $1.3 trillion dollars, with 57 percent, or $749 billion dollars being spent on travel and tourism and 43 percent, or $575.4 billion spent on travel-related goods and services. Taking the local travel pulse After digesting these numbers, PRIME decided to ask some local experts if the national downturn in travel spending was also showing up in Western Massachusetts We called Don Anderson, owner of the East Longmeadow-based vacation planning service, The Cruise Store, to get his take on the health of the travel industry. Anderson told us that, despite the economy, people are traveling. "I think as a society we don't like to suffer and if we've put up with all this [economic] gloom and doom we're really looking forward to that vacation," Anderson said. "We are having months with 100-to-200 percent increases in sales." And despite the name of his company, those sales aren't exclusively in the area of cruises. "Forty-five percent of our business is non-cruise vacations," he said. "People are coming in for trips to the islands, trips to Vegas, trips to Disney." In many cases, he said, the deals being offered right now are just too good for people to resist. "People are looking for value and the values are there," he said. " [And] the more flexible you are, the better the deals." For example he quotes an airline ticket price to Aruba of $99 each way. "But it's short notice," he noted. Sandra Marsian, vice president of membership, marketing and public relations for AAA of the Pioneer Valley, said their travel agency is seeing the same trend in an uptick in travel. "We're waiting to see the downturn in travel and we haven't seen that yet," Marsian said. "If [people] have the time and the money and they see that the pricing is great, they're taking advantage of it." For example, Marsian said that in January, when Disney first started breaking some of their travel package deals, AAA had to schedule two showcase nights instead of just one. "We had a great month," she said. We were worried about the downturn in the economy, the doom and gloom . but Disney kept coming out with cruise and park and world travel packages." And, she said, people booked. "If people have the time and the funds, there's no better time to travel than right now because of the prices," she said. "It's almost painful not to take advantage of traveling right now, especially working here," she admitted. Where are we headed? So, if people are in fact traveling despite the economy, what destinations are getting us to part with our hard-earned dollars? According to Anderson, warm weather destinations have been the top picks for the past few months. They want "some place that will keep them away from whatever feelings they have about the economy," Anderson said. "They want to jump into that Corona commercial." He said Alaska is also popular when people opt for a summer cruise. "The weather is very comfortable and perhaps the issues of global warming and the shrinking ice cap are in play here. Plus Alaska is a good value," he said. But he's finding some perennial favorites, such as Las Vegas and Hawaii aren't attracting the travelers the were in past years. "Hawaii is a popular honeymoon destination, but if people want to go to an island they want to go to St. Maartin or the Caribbean," he said. European travel is also off for right now, according to Anderson. "I think it will pick up in the fall," he said. "Airfares are dropping and the dollar is getting stronger versus the Euro; it's not as weak as it was a year ago." And cruising is still popular, though people are sometimes surprised by the prices of summer cruises. "Because it's hot up here [people] think Caribbean cruises will be cheaper," Anderson said. "But the ships disappear . where do the Alaska cruise ships come from? The Caribbean. Where do the European cruise ships come from? The Caribbean. Prices are okay, but you don't see the crazy prices you see at other times." Marsian said AAA is seeing life stage dictate destination and transportation choices to some extent. "I think a lot of what seniors are doing is longer-stay trips because their time constraints are less than that of working people," she said. "We're also seeing a lot of travel out West by car and RV . and a lot of escorted tours." She said across all age groups, trips to destinations in the U.S. and Canada are definitely up, while travel to Europe is down. Particularly with boomer and younger clients, she said AAA is seeing an uptick in interest in flyaway and cruise vacations. "Because of the economy, many people were considering driving trips, but the pricing is so great [on other things]" she said. "There are all-inclusive Caribbean trips for under $1,000 a person for a one-week trip including food, air, alcohol and accommodations, even [your] transfers are often included." Her advice was to "pick up the phone and [ask] what kind of package you can get." Other popular types of vacations are multi-generational trips, girls-only getaways, "green" and eco-tourism travel and destinations and trips that combine a volunteer experience, such as work in the rebuilding of New Orleans, with a vacation Marsian said she's also seen a trend toward people booking their vacations closer to the date of travel for things such as cruises and special vacations. "Typically you see people booking a year in advance, and now its three months in advance, and I think that's what 's impacting the prices [of trips]," Marsian said. "Hotels and tour companies are noticing that they aren't booked to the extent that they want and they start lowering the rates." "But the flip side," she said. "Is that the availability [of certain arrangements and destinations] goes down and you may not be able to get the vacation that you had hoped for." But bottom line, both Anderson and Marsian agree that whatever happens gas prices going up, the economy remaining on shaky ground people are still going to travel. "I think in this economy we're finding people just want to get away," Anderson reiterated. "They may change the length of their vacation, or the level of their accommodations, or their dining choices," Marsian said. "That is how people will cope so they can continue to go [away]."