… gas prices. By a long shot. At least according to our friends at Access America, who poll travelers every quarter about their travel-related anxieties.
Even airline service and security — two hotbutton topics on this blog — fail to come close to travelers’ gas problems.
So what?
Maybe the travel media (and I include myself in this group) needs to take a hard look at the way it covers the Recession of 2008. It is — and I want to be careful not to overstate this — obsessed with planes.
Travelers aren’t. They are concerned about cars. They worry about high fuel prices.
Travel news outlets aren’t doing their audience any favors by pretending their readers, viewers and listeners fly everywhere.
✓ Get the latest travel news, tips and commentary from Elliott’s E-Mail, the subversive newsletter from industry gadfly Christopher Elliott. You’ll travel like a pro. Sign up here. It’s free.
Similar Posts:
- Airline fee orgy has nothing to do with fuel prices
- Sky-high fuel surcharges stick despite sliding energy prices
- If fuel costs are under control, then why are airlines stalling?
- Who else will oppose the coming wave of airline mergers?
- Gas dips below $4 a gallon — brace yourself for fuel price amnesia
Sign up for my 
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I always wondered why the term ’staycation’ came into use. When I was a kid, we didn’t take a single vacation by airplane. We did a lot of vacations that were a few hours or a couple of days by car from home. I think a one-day car trip is a typical vacation for a lot of people.
@ Mike – I never traveled by plane for family vacations either. Sometimes I think the word “staycation” is also used for opting to not go anywhere at all- or at least not leave your town. In some cases I think that finding new adventures in and around you- or getting together with friends at home is an option that many put under the umbrella of “staycation.”
I think there is a discrepancy between several interpretations on the word ‘travel’. The ‘travel’ industry seems to have a definition that does not include the daily commute of people, while ‘the people’ include their commute into their ‘travel’ worries.
For a journalist, it’s actually quite hard to keep writing on the subject of gas prices. They’re high, and they’re gonna stay high. The reasons are political and economical. Those stories are in their own sections, so end of the travel story.
What does irk me about travel press is that there is so much focus on trips nobody makes. Let’s take a look at the current MSNBC travel section.
‘Dogs in the wild’: who cares? [Disclosure: I have a dog]
‘San Fran – my cut’: 10 pics of San Fran. I can find 1 million in Flickr if I want. Perhaps interesting for local citizens, but hardly for the other 295 million folks in the US that might read MSNBC.
‘Fresh amenities for pooped-out travelers’: Seriously? WTF?
‘Air travel fees, bumps and hassles’: Ahhhh, finally some real news.
and finally:
‘Rules you’ll want to know’: well, that’s good off course, or I wouldn’t be here.
Although, today is not as bad as usual, most travel sites are nothing more that objectified advertorials for the travel industry.