Extra-long holiday weekend
In fact, just make it a week. Lots of folks are taking advantage of the Wednesday holiday and plunking down a couple vacation days to enjoy an extended July 4 break. But will consumer spending stretch along with it? Alisa Roth reports.
Fireworks (Getty Images)
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Scott Jagow: So are you heading off to work this morning? I'm guessing you might be, if you're up this early, but some folks are taking advantage of the mid-week holiday to create a mini-vacation. Alisa Roth tells what this means for business.
Alisa Roth: It's certainly not the traditional three-day weekend, and it doesn't have the ease of a Tuesday or Thursday holiday, where taking the extra bridge day is no big deal.
But AAA survey says plenty of people are still using the Wednesday holiday to snag a few extra days off.
The association's Christine Brown says most of the people surveyed plan to be away for an average of six days.
Christine Brown: People are planning on spending a good amount of time in a new destination, so they'll be spending money at hotels, they'll be spending money at restaurants.
While that's good news for business, Brown says don't expect Americans to be spending willy-nilly all week long.
Brown: Because of the fuel prices, people are probably going to be scaling back in other ways, in terms of how much money they spend at restaurants and at hotels.
Of course, they might want to splurge at that most American tradition of them all: the Fourth of July sale.
In New York, I'm Alisa Roth for Marketplace.
