Retirement/leisure travelers' options vary

by Maria Hoover

Inside Business Editor

mhoover@sbj.net

For travelers who aren't bound by a one- or two-week vacation time limit, there are plenty of destination options.

Darren Driskell, manager of the AAA Travel Agency in Springfield, said his office works with many retired leisure travelers. And while he said AAA Travel Agency is open to all travelers, he noted that nonmembers don't always get to take advantage of cost savings and other member-only benefits.

"I think there's no question that, for us, the retirement age is going to catch a lot of our travel because of some of the extended vacations that are offered. Just through work and the funds that are involved to do the vacations, it has to be close to retirement age to get those two items together," Driskell said.

AAA Travel Agency does the bulk of its business about 98 percent in leisure travel, and the balance in business travel.

Retired travelers, he said, tend to want more than just entertainment when it comes to taking a trip.

"Retired travelers a lot of times are not the ones that are looking for that beach getaway where (they) really are not doing anything," he said. "They want to be involved and they want to learn something. So Europe, definitely, for a 14- to 20-day duration, is an area that we see quite frequently. We also see the cruise tour of Alaska from 11 to 14 days to be an item."

Jill Barron, owner of The Cruise and Travel Connection, said she also has a lot of retired travelers who head to Alaska.

"Princess Cruise Lines is a popular cruise line that does that, and it's just that there are more people in their age group that are attending," Barron said. "So many people, when they retire, (Alaska) is one of their places that they want to go see, the beauty of it."

Barron said her company does about 90 percent leisure travel.

"I would probably only say about 20 percent of our customer base if even that is retired couples," she said.

That might be because The Cruise and Travel Connection specializes in honeymoon, singles and family packages, and trips to Cancun and Las Vegas, and Barron said she often works with young couples and families.

Many retired travelers, she said, aren't necessarily looking for those types of trips.

"A lot of them want guided tours, and we don't specialize in that," Barron said.

Catch the bus

Mark Winter, owner of Show-Me Coaches, which has locations in Ozark and Columbia, said his company is a chartered motorcoach businesses, "where groups and organizations come to us with preformed groups and say that they would like to go from A to B."

Destinations for the trips chartered with Show-Me Coaches are often sporting events, including St. Louis Cardinals baseball games or Southwest Missouri State University Lady Bears games.

Winter's company contracts with motorcoach tour companies including Sunnyland Tours and Diamond Tours, which sell the actual group trips and get trips and travelers organized. "We're the transportation source for them," Winter said

Show-Me Coaches contracts with area banks that have travel opportunities for customers who are 50- or 60-plus, for one-day or multiple-day trips.

"Using Boone County Bank in Columbia, they do a trip a month, what I'm going to call local area. They do a history of Boone County (trip) or something like that," Winter said. "Or some of them have a grandparent-grandchild day where they'll go do something fun. They may go to White Water. They may go to Silver Dollar City for the day.

"When you call us, you're using the entire coach. It's not like four people from your group and six from this one, and two over here, and two over there."

According to the 2004 Best and the Rest Survey of the American Bus Association and Destination magazine, the most popular motorcoach destinations for travelers in North America are New York City, Washington, D.C., and Branson, along with Niagara Falls, and Toronto, Ontario, and Montreal, Quebec, in Canada. The ABA, a trade association with more than 1,000 motorcoach owners and tour company members in the United States and Canada, polls motorcoach and tour operators each year regarding the destinations and cities with the most to offer and the best value for groups.

While Winter knows what trips are popular with his client groups, the ABA survey showed that the most popular group activities on motorcoach trips are going to the theater, gaming, shopping, festivals and historic/cultural tours.

By rail

Driskell's AAA agency also offers Amtrak as a mode of travel for customers.

"Amtrak is not the least expensive way to get somewhere," he said, but it is appealing to travelers who have more time which is generally the retired traveler. He said the three most popular Amtrak trips include Kansas City to Los Angeles, the West Coast-Pacific Northwest and trips to the Northeast.

"People will take that vacation to see something along the way, and not have to feel that they're rushed to take their vacation and go somewhere, so we're seeing Amtrak used that way," he said. "I don't know that I see more Amtrak sales versus airline sales of late, but the Amtrak tickets that we do seem to do more of are the ones for lengthier trips and accommodations."

Sunny side up

Driskell said specialty cruises to Panama Canal, South America and even the transatlantic voyage are popular longer trips for retired travelers. For Barron's retired clientele, Hawaiian trips rank a close second to the Alaskan cruises in popularity.

Sunny, warm-weather destinations are common choices for retired travelers.

"Another thing that I'm seeing with retired people is family vacations to Disney, where the grandparents are taking either the kids, or the parents and the kids and going to central Florida. That is a trip that we're seeing a little bit more of, too, " he said.