SUMMER Annual vacation trend declines, shifts

Poll shows 51 percent of Americans didn't plan a summer vacation this year.
BALTIMORE SUN
In "Gift from the Sea," published in 1955, Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote, "By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class."
Today, half a century later, that vacationless class has grown.
For many Americans, the traditional summer vacation -- an extended holiday from the cares of day-to-day living -- is fading, eroded by social and economic forces. In its place, more families are squeezing weekend escapes to nearby destinations into their busy lives.
That change appears to have gained momentum this year, with large implications for tourism and in the lives of Americans.
A poll conducted in June by Harris Interactive showed that 51 percent of Americans did not think they would take a summer vacation and an additional 7 percent had delayed plans.
"I was stunned that half of Americans were not planning to take a vacation," said Jim Bradley, a spokesman for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which commissioned the poll.
"That certainly flies in the face of recent history," he said. "We thought, 'What's going on in the minds of Americans?'"
Shifting behavior
But, in retrospect, a pattern of shifting behavior has been evident for years, Bradley said.
"Five or six years ago, people booked their vacation plans 90 to 120 days out," Bradley said. "It's under 30 days now. It's not unusual for people who are on their way here to use a cell phone to make reservations."
Joe Robinson, author of "Work to Live: The Guide to Getting a Life," has studied the vacation issue for 10 years and seen radical changes in that period.
"This has gotten worse and worse," he said. "The standard unit of an American vacation is now a long weekend. It's downsizing of vacations, the way everything else has been downsized."
The survey results came as no surprise to him.
"This year we have statistics that back up what we've heard anecdotally," he said.
Guilt and fear
Despite evidence that an annual vacation can cut the risk of heart attack by 30 percent in men and 50 percent in women, guilt and fear keep people from taking their vacations, said Robinson, founder of the Work to Live campaign, which is lobbying for a federal law requiring three weeks of paid leave.
"The fact that there isn't a minimum paid vacation law gives them a sense of illegitimacy," he said.
To Europeans, to whom vacations are sacrosanct and who receive four or five weeks of vacation guaranteed by law, Americans' "live to work" ethic is appalling.
"Americans are bad about that," said Judith Siguaw, a marketing professor at the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University. "Now with the economy bad and job security concerns, people aren't taking vacations at all. They're afraid to leave the office."