Expensive gas prices could keep folks closer to home during vacation season

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Expensive gas prices could keep folks closer to home during vacation season

By EVAN WHITE

Story Created: May 14, 2008 at 11:11 AM EST

Story Updated: May 14, 2008 at 4:48 PM EST

Thanks to escalating gas prices and upward-spiraling airline fuel costs, some are reeling back on the long trips. Staying local this year may be the way to go.

With gas prices hovering just under four dollars in some areas around Utica, many New Yorkers are thinking about staying closer to home, and local tourism bureaus and businesses are banking on it.

Visitors are expected to start rolling through Central New York in about a week for Memorial Day weekend, and many will pass right by the Visitors Bureau off the thruway - a great resource for information on local attractions.

The bureau will soon get its mobile resource unit on the road which has brochures that can be useful guides.

Over the last 45 years New Yorkers have been staying closer to home once vacation time hits, and with fuel prices shooting through the roof, some expect the trend to continue.

While there are bigger cities nearby and counties with other attractions, tourism officials say there is a lot here, too.

"There's Turning Stone, like I said...the number one attraction in New York State," said Paul Zieglar of the Oneida County Visitors Bureau. "You have two world class attractions - Niagra Falls and New York City - one of the good points is that we are halfway between those."

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