From the Financial Times, a lagging indicator that the US is in Recession.....The Summer "Stay-cation"
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Americans head for summer ?staycations?
By Jonathan Birchall in New York
Wal-Mart, the largest US retailer, wants to trademark the word. Lowe?s, the home improvement chain, is building its summer marketing campaign around the idea. And state tourism board officials in Maine want residents to think about taking one.
As American consumers face a slowing economy and record energy and fuel prices, the ?staycation? is looking increasingly like the marketing buzz word of the summer of 2008.
Wal-Mart?s move to register the name at the US patent office in mid-May came as it launched an online ?widget? (http://walmartstores.com/staycations), which offers its ideas for ?101 days of summer staycations?.
These, it declares, are ?affordable, fun and family-friendly things to help you relax, celebrate and enjoy the special moments of summer in your own backyard?. They include finding and planting your state flower
, visiting a recycling centre 
and cooking up summer recipes.
Lowe?s has also embraced the term, announcing that the concept ?is gaining popularity with families who want a stress-free way to enjoy time together without breaking the bank?.
The retailer, wrestling with the effects of the housing slump on sales, helpfully listed products such as barbecue sets and hammocks that could create ?a paradise in your own yard?.
The marketing push is based on growing evidence that Americans will travel less this year.
One sign of that came in a recent survey of more than 2,000 US residents by Rand McNally, the leading US road map publisher, which found that 57 per cent of Americans planned to shorten their holidays and stay closer to home this summer.
One in 10 said that they either had cancelled holiday trips altogether or planned to do so.
Maine?s tourism board plans to launch a six-week advertising campaign in late June aimed at encouraging its own 1.2m residents to stay at home. ?Essentially the messages will say that Maine is a great place to vacation, even if you already live here,? says Steve Lyons, director of marketing at the tourism board.
Mr Lyons believes most people will still get beyond their backyard, and that traffic this year will be boosted by visitors from nearby Montreal and Boston.
?People from those areas who might otherwise have travelled further from home may decide to stay close,? he says.
Maine is not using the term ?staycation?, although Mr Lyons says, ?A lot of people are throwing the word around.?
The origins of the word remain uncertain. Hunter Walk, an internet product manager, bought the domain name staycation.com in December 2005 after spontaneously using it with friends some months before.
At the time, he says, ?it was definitely not part of the popular vernacular. I had to keep explaining to people what it was?.
Its first recorded public usage, however, came two months earlier, on Corner Gas, a Canadian TV comedy set in a roadside service station in Saskatchewan. The owner, played by Brent Butt, goes on ?vacation? every year in the field opposite his filling station ? establishing a link between hydrocarbons and staycations that has proved prophetic.
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I can see the postcards now, the family standing in front of a pile of aluminum cans at the Recycling Center, with the caption--"Wish We Weren't Here"
.
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Americans head for summer ?staycations?
By Jonathan Birchall in New York
Wal-Mart, the largest US retailer, wants to trademark the word. Lowe?s, the home improvement chain, is building its summer marketing campaign around the idea. And state tourism board officials in Maine want residents to think about taking one.
As American consumers face a slowing economy and record energy and fuel prices, the ?staycation? is looking increasingly like the marketing buzz word of the summer of 2008.
Wal-Mart?s move to register the name at the US patent office in mid-May came as it launched an online ?widget? (http://walmartstores.com/staycations), which offers its ideas for ?101 days of summer staycations?.
These, it declares, are ?affordable, fun and family-friendly things to help you relax, celebrate and enjoy the special moments of summer in your own backyard?. They include finding and planting your state flower
, visiting a recycling centre and cooking up summer recipes.Lowe?s has also embraced the term, announcing that the concept ?is gaining popularity with families who want a stress-free way to enjoy time together without breaking the bank?.
The retailer, wrestling with the effects of the housing slump on sales, helpfully listed products such as barbecue sets and hammocks that could create ?a paradise in your own yard?.
The marketing push is based on growing evidence that Americans will travel less this year.
One sign of that came in a recent survey of more than 2,000 US residents by Rand McNally, the leading US road map publisher, which found that 57 per cent of Americans planned to shorten their holidays and stay closer to home this summer.
One in 10 said that they either had cancelled holiday trips altogether or planned to do so.
Maine?s tourism board plans to launch a six-week advertising campaign in late June aimed at encouraging its own 1.2m residents to stay at home. ?Essentially the messages will say that Maine is a great place to vacation, even if you already live here,? says Steve Lyons, director of marketing at the tourism board.
Mr Lyons believes most people will still get beyond their backyard, and that traffic this year will be boosted by visitors from nearby Montreal and Boston.
?People from those areas who might otherwise have travelled further from home may decide to stay close,? he says.
Maine is not using the term ?staycation?, although Mr Lyons says, ?A lot of people are throwing the word around.?
The origins of the word remain uncertain. Hunter Walk, an internet product manager, bought the domain name staycation.com in December 2005 after spontaneously using it with friends some months before.
At the time, he says, ?it was definitely not part of the popular vernacular. I had to keep explaining to people what it was?.
Its first recorded public usage, however, came two months earlier, on Corner Gas, a Canadian TV comedy set in a roadside service station in Saskatchewan. The owner, played by Brent Butt, goes on ?vacation? every year in the field opposite his filling station ? establishing a link between hydrocarbons and staycations that has proved prophetic.
---------------------------------------------------------
I can see the postcards now, the family standing in front of a pile of aluminum cans at the Recycling Center, with the caption--"Wish We Weren't Here"
.
