Holiday travel up across nation, except in Mountain West

By Kyle B. Hansen

Thursday, Dec. 24, 2009 | 2:05 a.m.

More Americans are traveling this holiday season than did last year, but fewer Nevadans will be taking to the roads or skies, according to AAA's holiday travel survey.

The survey found more than 7.3 million people will travel for the holidays in the Mountain West region, which includes Nevada.

That's a 4.8 percent decrease from 2008.

But the news isn't all bad for Las Vegas. Nationally, 87.7 million people are expected to travel for the holidays, a 4.4 percent increase from last year.

And, at least for people in Southern California, Las Vegas is one of the top destinations.

The Automobile Club of Southern California expects an 11 percent increase from last year in the number of people who take an overnight trip of 50 miles or more.

That's 7 million people, and according to the club's survey, Las Vegas is their No. 1 destination, followed by Arizona and the Grand Canyon, San Diego, San Francisco and Disneyland.

AAA blamed the Mountain West's drop in travel on how severely the area has been hit economically.

"Anyone looking for a reason as to why the Mountain West region continues to show decreasing travel numbers simply needs to look at the unemployment figures," said spokesman Michael Geeser. "The Mountain West region is made up of states that were at the forefront of the housing boom and have been affected by the bust more so than other areas. Without disposable income, travel plans are one of the first things to go from a family's budget."

In the region, travel by automobile is down 4.4 percent to 6.5 million travelers, while air travel is down 8.1 percent, to 400,000 travelers, compared to last year.

For those who do fly this week, McCarran International Airport officials suggest planning on spending extra time getting to the airport.

The airport expects to have about 1.14 million passengers between Dec. 24 and Jan. 3.

Dec. 27 and Jan. 3 are expected to be the two busiest travel days of the season, with each Sunday seeing about 130,000 pass through the airport.

The airport's long-term and valet parking lots tend to fill early, but officials said passengers can plan to use the economy lot on Paradise Road near Tropicana Avenue or the remote lot on Gilespie Street north of Warm Springs Road. Officials said to plan for an additional 30 minutes to get to the terminals from the parking lots.