If you’re planning to travel this summer, the growing strength of the U.S. dollar may be keeping your hotel rates in check.

Demand for hotel rooms and airline tickets has been on the rise, thanks partly to strong consumer confidence. In fact, hotel occupancy rates are expected this year to reach 65.7 percent, the highest since 1981, according to a forecast from the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Hotels typically take advantage of strong demand by raising room rates. But the Pricewaterhouse forecast predicts hotel prices will rise only 5 percent this year, partly because hotels don’t want to chase away foreign travelers whose currency has recently lost value compared with the U.S. dollar.

Another factor is the abundance of travel websites that let travelers compare hotel prices, thus putting pressure on hotel managers to compete.

“The average traveler checks seven sites before selecting a hotel,” said Bjorn Hanson, a dean at New York University’s Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management.

Industry analyst Alan Reay, president of Atlas Hospitality, said the strong U.S. dollar might reduce hotel demand by tempting American vacationers to travel abroad to take advantage of the favorable exchange rates. “I think that is a big dampening effect this summer,” he said.

Airline payouts are on the rise

Inflation is no fun when it increases your everyday expenses. The good news is that rising inflation means that airlines must pay you more for losing your luggage or bumping you from your seat.

To keep up with inflation, the U.S. Department of Transportation recently announced that it was raising the maximum that carriers must pay passengers whose bags are lost or damaged. The top payout will increase to $3,500 from $3,400 on domestic flights.

If you get bumped because the carrier overbooked your flight, you are owed between $675 to $1,350, depending on the price of your ticket, an increase from the previous range of $650 to $1,300.

———

Los Angeles Times