Food and Fuel America.com: High Gas Prices Fuel Summer Staycations

Monday, July 7, 2008

High Gas Prices Fuel Summer Staycations

As millions of Americans struggle to cope with higher fuel and oil-spiked consumer costs, the summer vacation may just change forever. Gone are the days of putting the kids in the back of the minivan and driving across country to see grandma AND the Grand Canyon.

Now it seems now that only the rich can travel the country in an RV with $4 and higher gasoline. Or hop on a jet and fly to popular destinations.

So it's no surprise that the latest vacation is really no vacation at all: a staycation:

A staycation (or stay-cation) is a period of time in which an individual or family stays at home and relaxes at home or takes day trips from their home to area attractions. Staycations have achieved high popularity in hard economic times in which unemployment levels and gas prices are high

Oh it sounds all nice and all with the stay-at-home, "let's not spend much money". But it really means that Americans have fewer dollars to spend because they're paying for higher gas costs at the pump, at the grocery store and in all of the consumer goods that are made with oil or have to be shipped across the world.

And as Americans have less to spend on vacation hotels, attractions and food, businesses will respond by cutting back on the number of employees, expansions and other purchases fueling the economy into a continued slowdown or worse.

And it seems that staycations even come at a risk as well:

As staycationers are close to their places of employment, they may be tempted to go to work at least part of the time, and their bosses may feel their employees are available to be called into work. Staycationers also have access to their email at home as they would regularly, allowing them to be contacted, and feeling the temptation to keep up with this contact.

Stay at home, work more. Ah, the good ol' American life.

And you may find this interesting as well, Walmart has filed a trademark claim on the word "staycation".

Source: Wikipedia

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