As holiday season starts, traffic down — but not out — for Maine roads and retailers

Photo / William Hall Shopping at the Maine Mall on Sunday afternoon appeared to be brisk, with moderately crowded parking lots and stores.

Write a Comment

By William Hall

Thanks in part to an explosion in online shopping and tightening of travel restrictions across the U.S., Thanksgiving traffic at Maine retailers and on Maine highways was far less than usual.

Nevertheless, there were trips to take and brick-and-mortar business to be done.

The number of road trips last Wednesday and Thursday in Maine fell 50.6% from the levels during the same holiday period in 2019, according to data released Monday by Arrivalist, a New York-based GPS tracking company.

The decline in Maine ranked No. 10 among the sharpest for all U.S. states. The fall-off was even greater in other New England states, which filled the top five ranks. Vermont ranked No. 1, with a decline in holiday car trips of 66.4%, followed by Rhode Island, 64.9%; Connecticut, 57.6%; Massachusetts, 52.7%; and New Hampshire, 52.6%.

Photo / William Hall

Southbound traffic on the Maine Turnpike near Portland was busy Sunday afternoon, the end of the long Thanksgiving holiday period. But overall, Mainers stuck closer to home this year than in 2019.

Nationwide, the average decline was 35%, and fewer trips were recorded in every state except Hawaii. The Arrivalist analysis examined a representative sample of GPS signals from non-commuter car trips of at least 50 miles, with at least a 2-hour layover.

“The travel industry didn’t have a Black Friday event this year,” Arrivalist CEO Cree Lawson said in a news release. While data for the rest of the holiday weekend wasn’t yet available, he said it would probably be similar. “From a travel perspective, Thanksgiving 2020 looks just like any other weekend in 2020 — and a light one at that.”

On the Maine Turnpike, holiday traffic was 32.7% less than in 2019, and about twice the decrease originally forecast, according to data compiled Monday by the Maine Turnpike Authority. Spokeswoman Erin Courtney attributed the drop to a combination of the pandemic, some bad weather and e-commerce.

"Looks like people were doing some shopping online ahead of Cyber Monday," she told Mainebiz.

The decrease in road trips was even larger than some experts had projected.

The most recent data from AAA, released Nov. 12, forecast car travel would be down 4.3%, to 47.8 million travelers, during the five-day period from Wednesday to Sunday. However, AAA had cautioned that the number might turn out lower, since many Americans would take a wait-and-see approach to travel.

AAA also predicted that Thanksgiving holiday air travel would be far off last year’s level, down 47.5% to 2.4 million passengers. Travel by bus, train and ship was expected to show an even greater decline, 76.2%, to 353,000 passengers.

At the Portland International Jetport, the number of travelers during the Thanksgiving week was about 61% less than last year’s volume, according to preliminary data. That decrease was about what the jetport had predicted, Assistant Airport Director Zachary Sundquist told Mainebiz Monday.

Retail traffic

The stay-at-home trend also appeared to affect shopping over the Thanksgiving period. Crowds at retail destinations like the Maine Mall were smaller, in line with earlier projections.

Nationwide, holiday purchasing was expected to increase by 3.6% to 5.2%, to a total of $755.3 billion to $766.7 billion, according to the National Retail Federation, similar to the 2019 increase. But of the total sales forecast by the trade association, online and other non-store sales are expected to increase 20% to 30% this year, to $202.5 billion to $218.4 billion, up from $168.7 billion a year ago.

Photo / William Hall

Shoppers waited in a socially distanced line on Sunday afternoon to enter a pop-up store in the Maine Mall.

Despite those numbers, the number of cars and consumers out over the weekend appeared significant in some spots. Shoppers stood in socially distanced lines outside several stores at the Maine Mall, and parking lots were busy.

At L.L.Bean Inc., CEO Steve Smith told CNBC last week retail sales have been strong because people have rediscovered the outdoors.

“Bikes, boats, kayaks, hiking, and camping gear … We’ve had snowshoes up 350%, cross country skis, snow tubes, kids snow gear. All that is really blowing out.”

Photo / Peter Van Allen

Despite the explosion in online shopping, customers appeared to be out during the Thanksgiving holiday period in downtown Freeport.

Smith said there has also been a big demand for ”comfort clothing” such as robes and slippers because people are spending more time at home.

He also predicted demand will stay strong through the holiday season and into next year, which should also benefit other Freeport retailers as shoppers head to Bean’s big downtown store.