If people are vacationing at home, or close to home, because of increased gas and food prices crimping their budget, it sure wasn't notable based on the observed crowded highway traffic Mrs. Bubba and I experienced.
Journeying westward on I40 toward Cherokee on Sunday, I had anticipated westbound traffic to be somewhat lighter than the expected eastbound traffic returning from the mountains.
I was wrong. I could see no appreciable difference. Both directions of travel were pretty crowded all the way down to Exit 27.
The crowd at Harrah's was pretty good for a Sunday afternoon. But when I mentioned this to one of the ladies at the Rewards Desk, she said "You should have seen it yesterday. We set a new one day record for visitors." She didn't say so, but I would bet they set a new one day record for house take that day also.
We left Cherokee Monday morning to experience the Smokey Mountains Parkway trip to Gatlinburg, and again, we were not lacking for company. The scenic overviews were packed visitors. If you've never taken this route, it's well worth your time. The scenery near and far was impressive.
Impressive too was the moving parking lot aspect of the highway from Gatlinburg through Pigeon Forge and Sevierville. Take the Myrtle Beach Ocean Avenue Saturday Night Crawl in the dead of summer times three, and you have an idea of what I'm talking about. After the requisite outlet mauling, we checked into ourhotel north of Sevierville, and we learned from the front desk folks that they had been booked solid for the previous three nights, a first for that location.
The traffic on the way home going east on I40, then north on I81 wasn't exactly light, either.
Moral of the story?
It may only be anecdotal, but we saw LOTS of people spending LOTS of money on gambling, shopping, dining, and fuel, and we saw no sign of people who were pessimistic about the economy.
I guess somebody forgot to tell them to read or watch the Lame Stream Media, or Cone's blog, huh?
Bubba:
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like a great trip.
No aggregate government data are out yet for last weekend. The latest Beige Book reading, covering late April and May, agrees with your observations. It reports that tourism expenditures were up in the Atlanta district (which includes Tennessee) but down in the Richmond district (which includes North Carolina).
The highway figures are at odds with your observations. The figures through April indicate that auto travel in NC and TN is down over last year.
All of these are lagging indicators, so your observations may be indicative of a turnaround (maybe Walmart wasn't the only beneficiary of those government stimulus checks).