Falling Gas Prices Are Good News for Luxury Vacation Rentals
Aug. 31, 2006. Gasoline prices could keep falling and give a boost to the travel and tourism industry. An article in USATODAY quotes Fred Rozell, gasoline analyst at the Oil Price Information Service (OPIS) as saying "The only place they have to go is down. We'll be closer to $2 than $3 come Thanksgiving
The article by James R. Healy reports that the U.S. average for a gallon of regular peaked this year at $3.036 Aug. 10, according to OPIS/AAA daily surveys. That's slightly under the high of $3.057 Sept. 5, a week after Hurricane Katrina battered petroleum production in the Gulf of Mexico and caused fears of fuel shortages
Recently, gasoline prices have fallen rapidly. Travel organization AAA foresees prices 10 cents a gallon lower by the end of next week. It reported a nationwide average of $2.84 Tuesday, the lowest since April 20.
We don’t know if the OPIS projections are correct, but we hope so. While high gas prices have not had the impact on summer travel that was feared, sharply lower gas prices would be a boon to many vacation rentals in the off-peak seasons that are coming up. No one can predict the weather, but if we don’t suffer major hurricane damage to refineries this year, much of the logic of the USA TODAY scenario for falling prices makes sense. If enough of the large traders in the petroleum markets began to feel that the market was changing, prices could fall faster than we might expect.
