AAA predicts more traveling for the holidays this year

Could the Grinch effect of the recession be finally easing on holiday travelers?

AAA thinks so and predicts an upswing in people hitting the roads between Dec. 23 and Jan. 2.

This season, 91.9 million Americans will travel more than 50 miles from home during the holiday, AAA says, a 1.4 percent bump from 2010 when 90.7 million people took a trip in the same time frame.

“It’s a positive sign for the travel industry that so many Americans are planning to travel this holiday season, collectively contributing to the second-highest year-end holiday travel volume in the past 10 years,” AAA Chicago Regional President Brad Roeber said in a statement.

The modest increase could be attributed to slightly higher economic growth expected in the final quarter of 2011 compared to 2010, Roeber said.

Locally, 4.63 million Illinoisans will escape this holiday, a 0.5 percent increase from last year. That means 4.25 million people driving and 253,000 flying, AAA said. Nationwide, driving to a holiday destination is up by 2 percent.

The growth in auto travel comes despite uncomfortably high gas prices, with the average cost of a gallon of regular in Illinois coming in at $3.35.

And although travel is trending up, that’s largely because of the volume of people driving. Air travel dipped somewhat, with 5.4 million leisure travelers expected to fly this season, which is a 9.7 percent decrease from the 2010-2011 time period.

The contributing factor could be a 21 percent spike in airfares, according to AAA.