Photo credit: Carnival Cruise Lines
Is the current travel season an especially slow one? Are there plenty of empty seats on both domestic and international flights? A number of old-timers in travel will claim that travel is always slow in a presidential election year, when national politics captures the attention of millions, a phenomenon known in the trade as the "election year curse." And they cite travel statistics from the last fifty years that seem to validate that slogan. Travel, especially international travel by Americans, has historically fallen off in nearly all presidential election years.