The results of the new Ypartnership/Harrison Group 2010 Portrait of American Travelers reveal consumers may now be taking more “staycations” than reported previously. Last year, research on this "trend" conducted by Ypartnership suggested it was more media myth than reality (fewer than 10 percent of leisure travelers acknowledged they had taken one), yet new evidence suggests staycations' growth.
Ypartnership data clearly suggest that the Great Recession has, in fact, increased the incidence of staycations. “The implication for travel service marketers is clear: local and regional markets retain considerable potential for generating incremental business in the year ahead, and this potential is likely to remain robust through the duration of 2010 and well in to 2011,” Ypartnership says.
Staycations are the propensity of individuals to select a vacation destination closer to home as an alternative to traveling to a more distant destination, presumably as a result of budgetary constraints at the household level, Ypartnership says.
Fully one in four U.S. leisure travelers with an annual household income over $50,000 took at least one overnight leisure trip/vacation within a 50-mile drive radius of their home during the previous 12 months as an alternative to vacationing in a destination that would have required traveling a greater distance.
The incidence of taking this type of trip is higher among younger travelers (millennials and GenXers) than older travelers, yet equally evident across all households regardless of their annual household income.
Incidence of Staycations:
- All leisure travelers - 26 percent
- Generational group: Millennials (18-30) - 37 percent; GenXers (31-44) - 31 percent;
Boomers (45-63) - 21 percent; Matures (64+) - 15 percent
- Annual household income: $50-124K - 26 percent; $125K+ - 26 percent
- Children at home - 32 percent
- No children at home - 21 percent
The "staycation" phenomenon is also most pronounced among unrelated adults living together (vs. those who are married), and adults with children in residence at home:
- 37 percent of unrelated adults living together took at least one staycation last year, vs. 25 percent of those who are married;
- 32 percent of adults who have children at home took at least one staycation last year, vs. only 21 percent of those with no children at home.