Memorial Day travel to set record lows as pandemic continues

AAA will not be issuing its annual Memorial Day travel forecast this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Yahoo Finance’s On The Move panel breaks down how Americans are choosing to stay put on the biggest weekend of the year, Memorial Day weekend.

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: It is the beginning of the summer. It is Friday, the weekend-- Memorial Day weekend. And a lot of people would normally be traveling, but this year, gang, there doesn't seem to be that much, right, Julie?

JULIE HYMAN: No, definitely not. I mean, there was this survey conducted that found 95% of people do not plan to travel this weekend. So you know, the favorite word these days seems to be, unprecedented. But obviously, that's unprecedented. Also unprecedented is the AAA, which typically comes out with a forecast for travel for Memorial Day weekend is not doing it this time. They're not providing that forecast, and that's the first time they have not-- so just lots of different ways of measuring how little people will be moving around.

Although Peter Greenberg, who we have had on the show, Adam, from CBS, has said that this is going to be the summer of the great American road trip. That if people are traveling, they're going to be traveling by car, not just because flying doesn't feel very safe right now, but also because gas prices are low.

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, I got to wonder how many people from, I guess, you know, the regions that have been particularly impacted like New York, will actually go out and travel. I mean, my own parents have asked me to come and visit them. I won't, just because I don't want to risk their health. They're in New Jersey. I'm in New York. We're in a hot spot. But then in the New York area, we've seen a lot of people start to get out on the streets.

In fact, Mayor de Blasio was cracking down on bars and restaurants that were serving outdoor drinks on sidewalks and having people congregate there. He says that we're going to see the city open up in early June, but I can't imagine that that's going to be a tenable situation over Memorial Day weekend when people have been locked down for, oh, two months or so and really want to just get outside. I personally just want to have some drinks on a roof, you know, with safety measures in place.

RICK NEWMAN: I don't know, guys, it seems to me like this is the best opportunity ever to avoid the friends and family members you don't want-- you don't really want to see. You know, let's see what happens at Thanksgiving-- if people are still using this as an excuse not to get together with the people they really don't want to see on Thanksgiving.

One of my fears-- I'm trying to think opportunistically about this-- like, where might you be able to go and get a better deal than you would otherwise get or have the whole place to yourself or something like that. And my worst fear is I think I'm going to go mountain hiking or something and it's going to be remote, and I'm just going to be surrounded by hordes of people who had the same thought as I do. So I mean, the one thing we do know for sure is we're going to see different types of travel this summer.

ADAM SHAPIRO: So one thing to keep in mind, though, is that who's locked down, who's not. And we just heard from the governor here in New York that New York City will be the state's only region on lockdown after next week-- although Mayor de Blasio in New York has said probably begin opening up the first half of June. So what good is it if New York City is locked down but people still can move in and out? Because, listen, Second Avenue was-- there was traffic. It was backed up for the first time since March 18. I was thrilled. Who's ever happy about traffic? But it sounds like people are, whether we're being told to lock down or not, ignoring it.

RICK NEWMAN: It's problematic. I mean, and we've now started to see some research of various types saying, look, you can't contain a response to a state, for obvious reasons-- not just that the virus doesn't respect state borders, but neither do consumers. I mean, you know, if you can't shop in one state, you go to the next one. I think one of the most interesting things that's happened in our area, Adam-- our viewers not in the New York area might be interested by this-- officials in New Jersey are pissed off at New York because New Jersey beaches are opening and New York beaches or not. So in New Jersey, they think they're just going to get hordes of New Yorkers coming down there because they can't go to their own beaches in New York. So a bit of interstate rivalry there, I guess.

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, there are some beaches in New York that are opening-- on Long Island, they are, I believe. But in New York City, they're not opening. And I think there's been discussion of whether or not Bill de Blasio-- again, the mayor of New York City-- coming to terms with folks in Long Island saying, you can't keep New Yorkers out of those beaches. But you're right, Rick-- this is an idea where you do have hotspots or prior hotspots or areas where there's still lockdown. Those people are going to travel, and they're going to go to areas where there aren't lockdowns. And isn't that how the original spread across the country happened?

I think a lot of investigations have found that the original New York strains ended up in areas of the country where New Yorkers had fled. So with these openings and this kind of weekend and, you know, the warmer weather, there's been talk of maybe COVID not responding as well in the heat. But do you think that there might be people who are going to spread out across the country again?

ADAM SHAPIRO: Before you answer that question, I just want to let everyone know that CBS News is reporting President Trump is going to hold a press conference at 1:00 o'clock. So CBS saying the president will take questions from reporters at 1 o'clock.

JULIE HYMAN: And that was unscheduled, we should mention as well, Adam. And I just want to mention as well as we talk about lockdowns and reopening, that reopening is not like flipping a switch and everything is open. As we have discussed multiple times, there are phases to these reopenings. So even in states that are so-called reopened, they're not necessarily entirely reopened.

Restaurants are still at limited capacity in many places. And so when we talk about New York state outside of New York City, reopening it will be similar. It's not as though everything is throwing open its doors and bringing in large crowds of people. And as we also know, there are some things that will be not permitted for quite some time-- large gatherings, for example, concerts, for example, sporting events, for example are likely to still not be happening for some time-- so just something to keep in mind as we talk about all of these reopenings.

RICK NEWMAN: Here's what I'm waiting for some startup to invent-- a barbering machine--

JULIE HYMAN: [INAUDIBLE]

RICK NEWMAN: Where you go into a booth or something, and you just put in some money, and there is no person there. And you--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

ADAM SHAPIRO: You need to go rent "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." It's actually in there, and what happens to Dick Van Dyke in that old film, you don't want to see. But they've also got the clippers buddy where you can put on the-- you know, the things-- you know, set it at 3, 2 1. Or you can get an illegal haircut.

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah, I think we're all experimenting with all of the above, Adam.