Over the last several months, Hotel News Now has run several stories about U.S. hoteliers’ high expectations for summer travel demand in all guest segments.
Those predictions do seem to be coming true, but there’s a bit of a caveat here. High gas prices are playing into travel decisions, both for road trips as well as flights. Further complicating air travel are the ongoing, and sometimes last-minute, flight cancellations.
What we’re seeing here is the problem the U.S. government and state governments created by not diversifying their transportation options. I’m talking of course about a better public rail system connecting major markets across the country.
People have two options for traveling across a state — depending on its size — or across the country. They could bite the bullet and pay for an expensive plane ticket that will get them to their destination faster, or take a road trip, paying to refill their gas tanks and possibly staying at a hotel or two along the way.
Yes, we have Amtrak, but let’s not pretend it’s a super reliable or reasonable option everywhere across the U.S.
For example, my family is taking a trip this summer to Chicago. We’re flying, and man, it’s one thing to book a flight for one person for a business trip. It’s a different ballgame when buying round-trip tickets for a family of four. It was only after buying the tickets that I considered Amtrak, which would have been a much less expensive mode of transportation. The problem, however, is that the local departure times are at about 1 a.m.
Not exactly convenient.
I’m not saying a better public rail system or a high-speed rail system would fix everything. To create one now would require a massive infrastructure investment and take years or decades to complete. It also likely would be subject to some inflationary pressures, particularly for energy costs and maintenance and replacement work.
At the same time, it would be a third major mode of transportation that would give people another option to travel far distances. If we had something similar to what Europe has in place, the disruption in the airlines would likely be less severe because the demand would be further spread out. It would also mean fewer people on the road, helping relieve some congestion issues as well as allowing people to save on gas prices. It would also mean less air pollution.
The ease of rail travel and relatively inexpensive nature of rail tickets available in Europe make intercontinental travel much less of hassle. Sure, the U.S. is bigger, and its major cities are spread farther apart, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work. As a less expensive travel option, it might even spur more people to travel or to travel more often, and that would certainly pay off for hoteliers.
The problem, of course, is that aside from Amtrak, such a system doesn’t really exist in the U.S., and as I said before, it’d be a major investment that would take a long time to be completed.
To me, that sounds more like a reason to get started on it rather than wait even longer.
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