Summer Tourism Feels Squeeze From School Start Dates Moving Earlier
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To fully capitalize on summer, tourism industry stakeholders will need to adjust their strategies to win over tourist traffic and dollars within a shorter period of time.
More school districts have pushed their start dates up, trending away from what tourism industry stakeholders prefer and the historical norm, which is to start school after the federal holiday Labor Day. As a result, the industry loses out on tourist volume, staff and revenue.
More districts in Florida, Michigan, Illinois, North Carolina and New Jersey are requiring kids to come back earlier than their typical start dates. One big reason start dates are being pushed up is to make up for instructional time lost during the pandemic, said Harvard Graduate School of Education Henry Less Shattuck Professor of Education Martin West. Instructional time is essential to student success on standardized tests and other educational outcomes, he said.
“Families are booking with a shorter booking window,“ said Intrepid Travel North America General Manager Tom Smith. “We typically would have seen 6 to 8 months on average for family holidays, especially for international
