After a year in which the economy constrained Americans' wanderlust, you couldn't quite say they've got their bags packed and are now ready to ramble. But surveys of leisure-travel intentions indicate that more consumers feel they can afford to get back on the road. And people in the business of monitoring Americans' travel patterns also detect signs of life.

In Ipsos Travel Barometer polling released this month, the number of respondents saying they'll do more leisure travel in the next 12 months slightly topped the number saying they'll do less, 19 percent to 15 percent. (The rest said they'd travel for leisure about the same amount.) Despite much talk that people have their noses so much to the grindstone at work that they lack the time for leisure travel, 38 percent said they're "very able to travel" in the next six months and another 28 percent "somewhat" so, when asked to answer "based solely on your time availability." Just 4 percent said they're "not at all able to travel" based on their time availability.

More respondents said financial factors are keeping them home. But even when asked to consider their ability to take leisure trips in the next six months "based solely on your personal finances," nearly half said they're either "very able" (20 percent) or "somewhat able" (27 percent). That exceeds the total saying they're "not at all able" (12 percent) or "not very able" (21 percent) to afford leisure travel within that period. (The rest were "neutral" on the question.) Along the same lines, respondents who said they now see leisure travel as "very affordable" (10 percent) or "somewhat affordable" (31 percent) easily outnumbered those viewing it as "not at all affordable" (7 percent) or "not very affordable" (25 percent).

HAVING THE TIME AND THE MONEY
In many cases, this isn't just wishful thinking by consumers who are sick of being stuck at home. "What we learned from this particular survey is that personal finances do not appear to be a strong deterrent to traveling," says Mary Kaye O'Brien, vice president of travel for Ipsos Marketing. "Obviously, perceptions of affordability are impacted by personal disposable income. But the reality is that some travel, particularly hotel rates, has objectively become more affordable." Nor has it been strictly a matter of cutting rates and hoping customers will show up. "Travel marketers have been communicating affordability and bargains," says O'Brien, "impacting subjective perceptions of affordability as well."

From his perspective as chief executive officer of TripAdvisor, Steve Kaufer has seen consumers' determination to travel holding up well even amid a lousy economy. While air travel certainly took a hit, it's not as though people stopped traveling altogether. "It's more that people traveled more economically," says Kaufer. It's not so much a decline in travel as "a change in style," he remarks, as when a person might say to himself, "Maybe I'll drive down to D.C. instead of flying to Paris."

It's not, mind you, that people don't still wish to fly to Paris. A Harris Poll conducted just prior to the summer vacation season found consumers thinking big, even if their practical plans were more along the lines of a "staycation" or a visit with relatives. Asked to cite the country (apart from the U.S.) where they'd most like to spend a vacation if money were no object, they put Australia atop their list. Also in the top 10 were Italy, the U.K., France, Ireland, Germany, Japan, Greece, New Zealand and Spain. Clearly, the desire to see far-away places has not been extinguished by the bad economy, even if it's often more a mere wish than a serious intention.

And, indeed, the serious intentions (and willingness to spend on them) are more modest, and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. "Our data finds that the gap between being interested in taking a trip and actually planning to take that trip is larger for more big-ticket travel such as cruises, all-inclusive resorts and major vacations than it is for less-expensive trips such as visiting friends or relatives, weekend getaways, or even family trips, which tend to be drive-and-stay types of trips," says O'Brien.



HEY, GRANDMA, WE'RE HERE!
That's reflected in responses to the Ipsos polling, which was fielded in late September and early October, when respondents were asked how likely they are to take various kinds of trips in the next six months. Forty-two percent said they're "very likely" to take a trip to "visit family/friends" within that period, and 26 percent said they're very likely to take a "weekend getaway." But the "very likely" numbers were decidedly smaller for a major vacation in the U.S. (13 percent) or abroad (6 percent), as well as for trips to gambling venues (10 percent), romantic getaways (10 percent) or stays at all-inclusive resorts (5 percent). (One obvious caveat: The proximity of Thanksgiving and Christmas likely boosted the number of respondents citing family-and-friends trips in relation to other kinds of travel.)

Even the luxury end of the travel market has been altered by the tough economy. "Personally, I think that everybody in the luxury market -- travel providers and everybody else -- has been shocked at how deep, long and dramatically the luxury consumer has changed," says Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing, which specializes in tracking the behavior of luxury consumers. "Seemingly overnight they got budget conscious," she says, "and that new consciousness is not going to go away."
 
In this environment, luxury-travel providers that kept business alive by discounting during the past year will have to be cautious about boosting prices again as the economy recovers. "I think the luxury-travel providers are going to have to take their cues from the consumer about when they can raise prices," says Danziger. "But it can't simply be a knee-jerk reaction, i.e., 'Now the recession is over, so we can go back to the old way of pricing.' The new normal is going to be about giving consumers more value for the price. They will not be able to get affluents to pay $595 for a room, when they can get comparable comfort and amenities down the street for $395."

After all, even upscale consumers have gotten an education in economizing during the past year, and this is vividly true in a segment like travel. "We were doing some focus groups for a luxury hotel brand a little while ago," recalls Danziger, "and the clients in the back room were amazed to hear the consumers talking about 'rack rate' and using a lot of other industry terminology. Fact is, consumers are up on marketers' tricks. They know how to work the system, so the new reality will be that travel marketers are going to have to get one step ahead of the bargain-hunting consumer. And good luck, because the consumers are really, really agile today."

AVOIDING AVOIDABLE EXPENDITURES
Whatever their income bracket, travel consumers have become more intent on getting the most for their money -- and on avoiding avoidable outlays. TripAdvisor polling offers one telling detail in this regard. Before airlines recently ramped up baggage fees, 12 percent of air travelers took just carry-ons, while 61 percent checked one bag and 26 percent checked two bags. This holiday season, by contrast, 33 percent will take just carry-ons, 55 percent will check one bag and 12 percent will check two.

The heightened focus on value for one's travel dollar is seen as likely to outlast the recession, much as is the case with spending in other categories. "There is a lot of data to suggest that consumers are starting to define a new baseline in terms of their spending habits and acceptable spending levels," says O'Brien. "And this does involve recalibrating their expectations for how much it will cost them to travel. To this end, the discounted pricing we've been seeing in some travel sectors could actually serve to help solidify these new expectations for the future and help establish that new norm for consumers as being a 'bargain' or lower rate. At the same time though, consumers are pretty savvy and realize that low demand is one of the factors behind some of the discounts they've been seeing."

Of course, the Internet has provided consumers with ways of getting more mileage out of their travel spending -- a factor that didn't exist or was in its infancy when the country was emerging from previous recessions. TripAdvisor's Kaufer sees this close up. "In the travel-research space, you wouldn't know we're in a recession," he says. "Consumers are spending more time to research their trips," partly to find the cheapest rates and partly to make sure that the getaway -- more precious than ever as an escape from the workaday rat race -- is a success. "They want to spend a little more time to make sure it's right," says Kaufer."

That may contribute to a shift in the timing of consumers' travel planning. As the Ipsos report puts it, "Travelers do not appear to be in any hurry to finalize their purchases," with 70 percent saying they haven't yet bought what they'll need for their next trip. Kaufer has seen the same trend, with people often waiting to buy tickets and book rooms until a trip is just a couple of weeks away rather than six or eight weeks. In part, there's an element of hesitation about pulling the trigger on the expenditures for leisure travel. "It's fair to say there's more uncertainty about the trip," says Kaufer. And, in the case of hotels, consumers have been trained to wait in order to get the best deal. As O'Brien puts it, "The industry has done a lot to teach consumers that they get better pricing by booking airfare early and booking hotel closer to the date of their travel."