Hotel occupancies were up year-over-year in both April and May, according to the Greater Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau.
SPRINGFIELD – More than 1.9 million New Englanders plan to travel for the Fourth of July weekend this year.
That will be a 2.7 percent drop from last year, a change AAA of Pioneer Valley is blaming on spiking gas prices.
A gallon of regular gas averaged $3.67 Tuesday, down from $3.72 the week ago. But it is up from $2.71 a year ago.
Sandra J. Marsian, vice president for marketing and public relations at AAA Pioneer Valley, said spiking fuel prices also lead travelers to hold off making plans. They might decide on a weekend getaway on the Tuesday before instead of setting something up weeks in advance.
But on the upside, holiday revelers will have an abundance of good weather. The National Weather Service predicts good weather all weekend, especially on the July Fourth itself: mostly sunny, with a high near 87.
“We’ve been waiting for some good weather, said Karen Blom, co-owner of Zoar Outdoor in the Franklin County town of Charlemont.
Zoar offers adventure trips with rafting and zip lines where participants slide from tree to tree on suspended cables.
“We’ve had a lot of water,” Blom said this week. “But it was a slower start with a cool, wet spring. Now that school is out things are looking really good.”
Mary Kay Wydra, president of the Greater Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau, said hotel occupancies were up year-over-year in both April and May. June’s numbers will be hard to make sense of because of the tornado.
“But gas prices are weighing on people’s decisions,” Wydra said. “We are hearing that from our destinations.”
That’s why convention and business and large tour groups are an important part of the region’s tourist economy. Those come no matter what.
Zoar’s Blom said gas prices have an interesting impact on her business, Luckily, most Zoar customers live within one tank of gas.
“People who normally might take an airplane ride will come to us on a weekend,” she said. “People who normally can only afford to come out and see us are staying home.” According to AAA, those 1.9 million travelers will account for 13.4 percent of the region’s population, the largest ratio of travelers of any region in the country. The national average is 12.4 percent.
In New England 1.7 million will travel by car, a 3.2 percent drop. About 100,000 New Englanders will travel by air, a 9.3 percent increase from 2010.
Nationally, AAA expects 39.1 million Americans to travel for the July 4 holiday.
Springfield-based Peter Pan Bus Lines anticipates carrying more than 120,000 passengers during the holiday period from Thursday through Tuesday, July 5. The bus company will add 250 additional buses to its popular route service from Washington north to New York City and Boston.
Adam Hurtubise, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said Friday and Monday should be the peak travel days with people leaving for, and returning from, their holidays. The state plans to suspend construction on those days, but people attempting an early getaway should be warned that construction will continue as normal Wednesday and Thursday, June 29 and June 30.
Hurtubise said travelers should expect traffic to be heavy, especially on interstate highways.