Memorial Day Travel Expected to Defy Recession
More Washingtonians are likely to leave home this Memorial Day weekend than last, a hopeful sign that close-to-home holiday travel here may be somewhat recession-proof, transportation and tourism officials said yesterday.</br></br>"You can sum up the numbers in four words: There is a rebound," said John Townsend, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic.</br></br>After thousands of vacationers stayed put last Memorial Day -- when gas prices topped $3.80 a gallon -- AAA predicts that 730,000 area residents will travel 50 miles or more from home this three-day weekend, about 4 percent more than last year. Just 6.7 percent of them will board a plane because of the expense, officials said, leaving 83 percent to travel by car. The auto club predicts that rail and bus travel will drop 10 percent.</br></br>The price of gas has risen 25 cents a gallon in the past three weeks, but at $2.29 a gallon it is still about $1.50 less than this time last year. Another factor making local travel more likely is the region's huge workforce of federal workers and contractors, which has been less buffeted by the downturn than those in other parts of the country.</br></br>"What you see is a certain resiliency on the part of the local economy," Townsend said at a news conference in Stevensville, Md., with the Chesapeake Bay Bridge as backdrop.