By Expedia Guest Author, on November 9, 2007

On the Holiday Travel Menu: The Usual Crowds and Peak Pricing Served Up With a Healthy Portion of Some of the Best Deals of the Year

Expedia Travel Trendwatch finds that despite a trying summer, travelers are expected to hit the skies in record numbers in coming months

BELLEVUE, Wash., Nov. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Expedia.com®, the world’s leading online travel service, today introduced the latest issue of its quarterly report, Expedia Travel Trendwatch™, focusing on the upcoming holiday travel season. The latest report finds that despite the usual peak crowds and prices, travelers with flexible schedules can find some of the very best travel bargains and lightest crowds of the year. In addition, this issue provides tips on navigating around the season’s most heavily traveled days, which delay-prone airports to avoid and advice on uncovering deep discounts. The report also reveals that 40 percent of U.S. adults would prefer to stay in a hotel when visiting family out of town for the holidays(1). To view the complete report, please visit http://www.expediatraveltrendwatch.com/. http://www.expedia.com/trendwatch

 

“There’s no doubt the upcoming travel season will be a busy and expensive one, with millions of Americans visiting friends or family and taking winter vacations,” said Chris McGinnis, editor, Expedia Travel Trendwatch. “But with smart advance, planning and flexibility, travelers can avoid the high prices, crowds and frustrations they’ve become all too aware of.”

 

Key winter travel trends reported in the current issue of the Expedia Travel Trendwatch include:

 

  1)  Thanksgiving Travel
      --  Thanksgiving will usher in the busiest travel days of the year,
          however, there will be some respite if travelers can plan around
          the peak times listed in the below calendar.

AIR TRAVEL VOLUME THANKSGIVING WEEK (NOVEMBER)
Tues 20 Wed 21 Thur 22 Fri 23 Sat 24 Sun 25 Mon 26
T-giving
HEAVY VERY AM: HEAVY MODERATE HEAVY VERY VERY
HEAVY PM: MODERATE HEAVY HEAVY

(2) Winter Holiday Travel
— With both Christmas and New Year’s Day falling on a Tuesday this
year, the peak season runs from roughly Thursday, Dec. 20 through
Saturday, Jan. 5, a full 17 days. This longer than normal peak
season is good news for travelers as it means crowding should be
more dispersed over more days than usual.

AIR TRAVEL VOLUME CHRISTMAS WEEK (DECEMBER)
Fri 21 Sat 22 Sun 23 Mon 24 Tues 25 Wed 26 Thur 27
Christmas
VERY VERY HEAVY MODERATE AM: HEAVY VERY HEAVY
HEAVY HEAVY MODERATE
PM: HEAVY

AIR TRAVEL VOLUME NEW YEAR’S WEEK (DECEMBER/JANUARY)
Fri 28 Sat 29 Sun 30 Mon 31 Tues 1 Wed 2 Thur 3
New Years New Years
Eve Day AM:
VERY VERY VERY VERY MODERATE VERY HEAVY
HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY PM: HEAVY HEAVY

(3) “Dead Weeks” are really “Deal Weeks” for savvy travelers
— Some of the lowest prices of the year can be found roughly the
two weeks before Thanksgiving, the first two weeks of December,
and the first two weeks of January.
— Best bets for post-Thanksgiving deal weeks include cruises,
Caribbean resorts, ski resorts (if there is snow; many resorts
open over Thanksgiving) and last minute packages. Best bets for
post New Year’s deal weeks include ski resorts, big cities,
Hawaii, Mexico and Europe.

About Expedia Travel Trendwatch

 

Expedia Travel Trendwatch is a quarterly report on consumer travel trends, plus insight and tips from Expedia.com, the world’s leading online travel service, and Chris McGinnis, a 20-year travel industry veteran who is the editor of the report. McGinnis’ travel industry insight and expertise, coupled with unparalleled travel intelligence from Expedia.com, can be found throughout each report, providing a treasure trove of data, trends, and tips designed to help empower and inform travelers.

 

About Chris McGinnis:

 

Chris McGinnis is the editor of the Expedia Travel Trendwatch. Prior to teaming up with Expedia in early 2006, McGinnis covered the travel beat in a variety of roles, from travel correspondent on CNN Headline News and travel columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Entrepreneur magazine, to producer of special travel sections for Fortune magazine. Based in San Francisco, his is also a speaker, consultant and the author of two books on business travel: The Unofficial Business Traveler’s Pocket Guide and 202 Tips Even the Best Business Travelers May Not Know (McGraw-Hill).

 

About Expedia.com

 

Expedia.com is the world’s leading online travel provider, helping millions of travelers per month easily plan and book travel. Expedia.com (http://www.expedia.com/) aims to provide personalized service, the latest technology and the widest selection of vacation packages, flights, hotels, rental cars, cruises and in-destination activities, attractions, and services. With the Expedia® Best Price Guarantee, Expedia.com promises to offer to its customers the best rates available online for all types of travel, making it the most comprehensive customer guarantee in online travel. Expedia is dedicated to positively impacting global tourism by providing travelers environmentally conscious travel options. Expedia is a founding member of the World Heritage Alliance – a joint initiative with the United Nations Foundation to promote sustainable tourism. Expedia.com is an operating company of Expedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE).

 

Expedia, Expedia.com and Travel Trendwatch are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Expedia, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other logos or product and company names mentioned herein may be the property of their respective owners.

 

  © 2007 Expedia, Inc. All rights reserved. CST: 2029030-40

About the Expedia.com Consumer Survey

 

This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of Expedia.com between October 8 and October 10, 2007 among 2,267 U.S. adults 18 years of age or older, of whom 479 plan to travel by air this holiday season.. Results were weighted as needed for region, age within gender, education, household income and race/ethnicity. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.

 

All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words “margin of error” as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100% response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal.

 

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the U.S. adult population). Because the sample is based on those who agreed to be invited to participate in the Harris Interactive online research panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

 

  (1) Harris Interactive® fielded the online survey on behalf of
      Expedia.com between October 8 and October 10, 2007 among 2,267 U.S.
      adults 18 years of age or older, of whom, 479 plan to travel by air
      this holiday season. No estimates of theoretical sampling error can be
      calculated; a full methodology is available through Expedia.com®.

 

SOURCE: Expedia, Inc.

 

CONTACT: Erin Krause of Expedia, Inc., +1-425-679-4317,
press@expedia.com</br/>

 

Web site: http://www.expedia.com/
http://www.expedia.com/trendwatch
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