Record Summer Travel Signals Economic Optimism: EcoPulse.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-04/record-summer-travel-signals-economic-optimism-ecopulse.html

Settling back into work after an end-of-summer trip? You’re not alone, which suggests many American consumers and business leaders feel more confident about the pace of the U.S. recovery.

With Labor Day marking the unofficial end to the travel season, the hotel industry is coming off its strongest three months of demand since at least 1987, said Jan Freitag, a senior vice president at STR Inc. From May through July, about 322 million room nights were sold, the most since the Hendersonville, Tennessee-based research company began tracking the figures. August data are scheduled for release Sept. 18, and preliminary information suggests another record month, he said.

“Summer travel has been very healthy,” boosting year-to-date demand, which is up more than 4 percent from the first seven months of 2013, Freitag said. This increase is driven by a confluence of increased bookings by business, group and leisure travelers from the U.S. and abroad, he said.

About 34.7 million Americans took trips of 50 miles or more from their homes during the recent holiday weekend, the most since 2008, according to a forecast from AAA, based in Heathrow, Florida. That’s a 1.3 percent increase from 2013 and follows projected gains of 1.9 percent for the Fourth of July and 1.5 percent for Memorial Day holiday weekends, data from the largest U.S. motoring organization show.

‘Very Positive’

AAA’s forecasts are “encouraging and pretty consistent” with other measures of discretionary spending that also have improved, including new automobile sales, said Russell Price, senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Inc. in Detroit. Americans’ increased willingness or ability to take vacations is “very positive,” supported by broader hiring gains, a higher level of comfort in their financial situations from stock gains and some degree of pent-up demand, he said.

One indication of the “healthy return of leisure travel” is reservations for Saturday nights, at almost 83 percent occupancy in July, Freitag said. “This speaks to very strong demand on weekends.”

Consumer travel makes up about 30 percent of total U.S. hotel bookings, and while there’s “still a little bit of the have and have not” among American consumers, economic growth in some countries outside the U.S. has been a “tremendous benefit” to the industry, said Bill Crow, an analyst in St. Petersburg, Florida, at Raymond James & Associates Inc. “It’s been a terrific summer from a lodging perspective,” which could provide an “upside surprise” when many publicly traded hoteliers report earnings next month.