Cathy Shafran: This is 89.1 WEMU, and I'm Cathy Shafran. We are focusing for a few minutes today on a date designated as National Plan for Vacation Day. It is tomorrow, the last Tuesday of January, apparently a day launched by the U.S. Travel Association project back in 2017. With the official Plan for Vacation Day only a day away, we thought we would check in now with Dave Lorenz, who is the head of Michigan's Pure Michigan campaign to help us understand its significance and what you should be doing on the day. Hi, Dave. Thanks so much for being with us.
Dave Lorenz: Oh, it's really a pleasure to be with you. Thank you.
Cathy Shafran: This brings so many questions to my mind because I knew nothing about it until I started hearing about it just this week. So, why the end of January? Why one day? And what should folks be doing on this day?
Dave Lorenz: Well, years ago, the U.S. Travel Association was contemplating about the fact that too many of us don't take all of our allocated vacation time, which is crazy. You know, we all want to have, you know, the most amount of pay as we can get in all the benefits that we can get for the work we do. And often, that benefit includes vacation time. And in America, we don't traditionally even give out enough of that. The average is like two or three weeks, which is, you know, very low compared to most countries around the world. And even with only two or three weeks of vacation time, Americans tend to don't just basically not use that vacation time. They often have a use it or lose it policy and they lose it. And that's a huge problem for the mind, body and soul. But it's also a problem for the travel and tourism industry because the more people travel, the better off our economy will be, the more jobs they'll be, the more tax income that comes into communities. All the economic benefits are there when people travel. But even if you were to take that and kind of forget about that side of it for a bit and just thinking that, personally, taking a vacation makes a big deal a difference in who you are, how you act, how you feel, and how your family feels about each other. So, it's so very important that we take a vacation. And we try to take this day every year just to remind everybody not to let that happen again this year and to plan now.
Cathy Shafran: Why January at the end of January?
Dave Lorenz: You know, we just had to come up with a date. And we knew that for four-season destinations, like in Pure Michigan, this is the time of the year where you hear people talk about winter blues a lot. And a lot of people really are getting into the winter blues. So, we knew that people would be in that mindset. They're ready to think about vacation, so it's a great way to do it.
Cathy Shafran: So, what should I be doing tomorrow to celebrate participation?
Dave Lorenz: You should go to Michigan dot org. We always say your trip begins at Michigan dot org. And what we mean by that is it really is best to plan things out, to have an idea of the things you might want to do and the places you might want to go to without overly understanding what you're going to experience because you want to leave some of that joy of discovery and your travel experience as well. But for all that to happen, you have to first book that trip. It's amazing to me how many people kind of put things off. So, if you don't plan it, then it's more likely you won't do it, the closer you get to that time of your trip. If you haven't booked in advance, it's more likely you're going to spend more when you're making that last-minute booking.
Cathy Shafran: Are there tips on the cheapest days to travel? Best day of the week, for example, to book a flight?Any of those tips included?
Dave Lorenz: Yeah. If you book during the weekdays in really popular places, like, let's say, Traverse City, maybe consider Traverse City maybe a Monday Tuesday, Wednesday or Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, something like that. And then, maybe you keep your Thursday, Friday, Saturday for a lesser-known place because those popular areas, they are so popular, they're going to be a lot of people, again that prices are going to go up as well. If you are going to fly, there are days that are known to be best booking days to fly, you know, and they're basically I think it's almost always considered Tuesday, but that does adjust a little bit, and it does depend on the carrier as well.
Cathy Shafran: And I see one more tip here was how to maximize vacations by adding on to your typical days off to a tail end of it or before it begins. Ideas like that?
Dave Lorenz: Yeah. And here's kind of related to that. I think we need to start looking at travel as educational in addition to fun and then looking for ways to blend our business travel with leisure travel as well.
Cathy Shafran: Okay, last question. What are you going to be doing to observe or celebrate the National Plan for a Vacation Day tomorrow?
Dave Lorenz: I am literally looking at vacation myself because I'm not going to just talk about it without doing it. The funny thing is, I just got back from vacation, so I'm in a vacation mood. So, I went to visit my family, and we're going to consider what we're going to do this summer or fall as a couple. And then, I'm hoping maybe we can get our son involved and maybe his significant other, the big planning day. No magical day to do it, but it's important to do it. So don't put it off. If you can't do it this week, you know, do it soon, and make sure you make your bookings in advance.
Cathy Shafran: Dave Lorenz, head of Michigan's Pure Michigan campaign. Thank you so much for bringing us up to speed on National Plan for Vacation Day, which is tomorrow. This is 89 one WEMU. I'm Cathy Shafran
Here is a link to Pure Michigan.
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