When Alternative Spring Break Program Managers Jess Tannhauser and Anne Hetherington planned ASB trips last summer, gas prices neared five dollars per gallon. They cut trips located farther away, like the 26-plus hour drive to a Texas site, in order to save on traveling costs.’
‘We eliminated trips farther away and added more trips that were closer,’ Tannhauser, a School of Management senior, said.’ ‘And this is the first year we’re initiating public transportation . . . We’re trying to be more sustainable.’
After the summer, the economy fell, and the feverishly high gas prices dropped to lower than they had been before their months-long inflation. Although the recession leaves many people with less money to spend frivolously, travel prices are cheaper than ever, travel officials said.
‘Average airfares have come down during the first part of this year,’ Priceline spokesman Briak Ek said. ‘There are some very good deals.’
Ek said this is a ‘buyer’s economy.’
‘The economy has affected the number of people traveling, and the suppliers ‘-‘- the hotels, airfares and rental car companies ‘-‘- are aggressive in trying to attract consumers,’ Ek said. ‘They very much want your business.”
The unstable economy prevented ASB program managers from exploring trips accessible by air travel, however, Tannhauser said.
‘Maybe if the economy changes and things change and if airline prices weren’t so volatile, maybe they can look into flying,’ Tannhauser said. ‘Maybe they could even look more international, but with the limited resources we have, closer trips are better.’
The student fee for ASB is $5 more than last year to offset inflation in the current economy, Tannhauser said.
Students who are traveling with friends to more traditional spring break destinations are looking deeper to find the cheapest possible options.
College of Communication sophomore Anneliese Waddington said she eliminated hotel costs by staying with a friend in Huntington Beach, Calif. Waddington will only pay for airfare, which comes to $320.
‘It’ll be a lot cheaper than a hotel,’ Waddington said. ‘It would probably be too expensive unless we found some really cheap hotel deal.’
COM sophomore Anya Kanevsky said if she had not found free lodging in Florida, the trip she has planned for break would be too expensive.
‘The trip is a whole week, but we’re staying at my friend’s grandmother’s place, so I’m only paying $221 for the flight,’ Kanevsky said.
Scouting for cheap spring break travel deals has more to do with the low student income than with the failing economy, College of General Studies sophomore Meredith Jacobson said.’
‘We got plane tickets as early as we could, just so we could get the tickets cheaper,’ Jacobson said.
Some students, like SMG sophomore Ryan Kaplan, said the Travelocity travel packages were too ‘structured.’ Kaplan hunted down plane tickets to the Bahamas directly through JetBlue’s website, and finagled an all-inclusive, six-night stay at Breezes Resort.’
‘Breezes Resort gave us one night for free, so I know they are definitely trying to attract people,’ Kaplan said.’
Kaplan said although the economy did not affect whether or not he and his friends chose to go on spring break, it did affect the length of their getaway.
‘We certainly cut it [our trip] down by a few days,’ Kaplan said. ‘If the economy were better, we’d be spending longer. We brought it down to the right price for us.’
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
