I found the following article to be quite interesting:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/03/07/consumer.spending/index.html

Especially this passage:

"It's almost as if travel is no longer discretionary spending. Americans are working harder, longer. They may not like their jobs, and they don't get a lot of time off. So when they get a vacation, they're going," he says. "Maybe the new car or the new lawn mower will take a backseat. Maybe people won't eat out as much. But they're going on vacation."



This really is true in our household. We have really cut back on eating out and have cut back on boring things like electricity usage, but we still took our vacations. I think people still feel they deserve a treat after working hard, but in tough times it has to be something more tangible, something less out and out wasteful like an overpriced coffee or gossip mag.