98.6 million travelers set holiday travel record

LEE COUNTY, Fla. – AAA says more than 98 million holiday travelers have now set a record, making the past two weeks of Christmas and New Year’s the busiest holiday travel period on record.

AAA Spokesman, Mark Jenkins, says this year holiday travel is not only at a peak high but is also expected to grow.

“A lot of that has to do with improvements with consumer confidence, people have more disposable income because gas prices are low and the holiday period is one day longer than last year, the longest actually since 2008,” said Jenkins.

Despite a looming Christmas Eve storm, more than 5 million holiday travelers took to the air this season and flew in or out of Southwest Florida International Airport. Kim Mcnamara and her family flew in to visit family in Naples from Connecticut, without a hitch.

“I was nervous about flying this time of the year, it’s obviously a very busy time of the year, a lot of people coming down here for the winter and it turned out to be a great experience,” said Mcnamara.

However the majority of holiday travelers drove. With 90 percent taking to the highways, most likely taking advantage of the low gas prices like Marques Hennig, visiting Florida from Wisconsin.

“When I left last year to go back to Wisconsin gas was $3.40 something and now it’s down under $2.40 now, so that’s a dollar savings”

AAA estimates that dollar savings in Southwest Florida and other parts of the country could continue to go down as long as the price of crude oil continues to fall.