Skift Take

It's an all-around red letter forecast for U.S. summer travel spending this year as travelers enjoy cheaper gas prices and a stronger dollar compared to previous summers.

Travel marketers aiming to move Americans from their homes to their dream destinations or favorite beach hideout this summer can revel in the $65 billion projection U.S. adults are expected to spend this season.

The average American said they’ll spend $2,788 on summer travel this year when Adobe surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults who indicated having travel plans. The Adobe Digital Index also analyzed more than 15 billion visits across major U.S. travel, airline and hotel sites between 2013 and 2015 and more than three million social media mentions to create summer 2015 travel projections.

The $65 billion Adobe projects Americans will spend on summer travel is a 7% increase from last year’s projection, which Tamara Gaffney, a principal analyst for Adobe’s Digital Index, said was close to the actual total spend. Millennial travelers will spend about $2,300 on their vacations while 35 to 49 year olds will spend about $2,800 and baby boomers will spend roughly $3,100.

The data show U.S. originating flights for domestic and international travel were down about 4% for the first four months of 2015 and are expected to remain lower than last summer.

“Sure, it looks like lower gas prices have helped decrease airfares but I’m not sure anyone has picked up on the factor that hotels have gone up 5% so far this year,” said Gaffney. “So when you consider that hotel prices are actually higher than last year that essentially cancels out any savings from lower airfares and that’s why we’re seeing travelers say they’ll spend more this summer.”

This finding is certainly wishful thinking: about one-third of respondents said they’ll vacation at a destination with limited or no Wi-Fi connectivity available. Many travelers surely fantasize about a peaceful, unplugged vacation but we’re willing to bet all our chips travelers won’t actually bail on their mobile binging habits when they realize they need their phones for sites like Yelp and Google.

The full report, which contains other findings about the rise of smartphone transactions and when Americans will travel, is embedded below through Slideshare:

smartphone

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Tags: adobe, summer travel

Photo credit: A hot sunny Memorial Day at Rockaway Beach in New York Dan DeLuca / Flickr

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