Convenience Matters Introduction:
You’re listening to Convenience Matters brought to you by NACS. Whether it’s for food, fuel, drinks, or snacks, about half of the U.S. population shops at a convenience store every Day. We’ll talk about what we see at stores and what the future may hold for our industry.

Jeff Lenard:
We talk about Memorial Day as the kickoff to summer drive. And once again, it’s the kickoff in 2021. We’re on the eve of Memorial Day weekend. And what we’re going to talk about is not only what Memorial Day traffic may mean for convenience stores and others on the go, but what it may indicate for the rest of the summer and beyond that, as we emerge from the pandemic, stay tuned. We’ll talk to AAA.

Carolyn Schnare:
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Jeff Lenard:
Welcome to Convenience Matters. My name is Jeff Lenard with NACS.

Carolyn Schnare:
And, I’m Carolyn Schnare also with NACS.

Jeff Lenard:
And Carolyn, toDay, we are hearing from the foremost authority on what is going on with Memorial Day traffic, AAA’s Andrew Gross. He’s the public relations manager for AAA National and AAA has real name cache, real recognition in terms of putting out surveys that reflect what they see for predictors of not just what we’ll see on the roads, but what we’ll see in all kinds of travels. So we’ll dive into all kinds of things. Um, but first Andrew, if you can just kind of give us a sense of what this survey examines, and then we’ll dive into some of the findings and some of the recent news that may affect those findings. So set us up big picture. AAA National has these surveys. What, what is the big picture in what you want to communicate to people who are paying attention to Memorial Day?

Andrew Gross:
Well, we know a lot of people are going to be hitting the road from Memorial Day weekend this year, certainly as opposed to last year. And in a lot of ways, we almost want to throw last year out because it was just such a weird year. Uh, COVID depressed travel across the board. So we really need to go back to 2019, the old pre-pandemic Days, cast your mind back to that and we’re approaching those levels, but we’re not quite there yet. We’re still going to be about 10 to 15% lower than we were pre-pandemic. So just to give you some numbers, we’re expecting about 37 million Americans to hit the road this Memorial Day weekend and about 34 million of those folks will travel by car.

Jeff Lenard:
And that is certainly great news for anybody who sells fuel and jokingly just thinking like, won’t it be nice to complain about a traffic jam again, because a lot of us haven’t really been in one for a while and certainly we don’t like traffic jams. We don’t. But it would be nice to go back to some of those more typical concerns that we had in the past. Now is there anything since this survey was first developed – and we know what it’s like at NACS, when you develop surveys and then some news happens in between – was there anything related to the Colonial Pipeline in terms of how fuel gets from one spot to the other that may affect this? I think most experts are saying by Memorial Day, most of the things that, that are a concern will be smoothed out, but is there anything there that might play into what AAA is looking at for Memorial Day traffic?

Andrew Gross:
Well sure. You know, I don’t think anybody could have predicted the amount of panic shopping that ensued when the Colonial Pipeline went offline. And I think a lot of people when they heard about that, they probably didn’t know there was this pipeline to begin with and they weren’t aware of just the magnitude of it, you know, like what 45% of the fuel and the Southeast of the United States. So when you tell people it’s offline, then there’s the impression like, what does that mean? Does it mean it’s broken somehow? And then you have to explain it was a hack and, and you saw how it just began to feed on itself. And it doesn’t take much when you see on television long lines of cars, it’s like a run on a bank, right? Everyone has to get down there and get it. And it’s it really fed on itself. And that took everybody by surprise. And now I think it’s going to take a while to kind of dig ourselves back out of it. We’re seeing gas stations coming back online. Uh, but there will be some spots around the Southeast that it’s going to take awhile. And it may be getting a little closer to Memorial Day weekend before everybody is fueled up. And you may still find some places where there might be some stations that are still out.

Carolyn Schnare:
The other Day I went to a big box retailer and I was trying to buy socks, which it’s summer so there should be socks, but there were no socks. I could not find boys socks for my son. And I stood there and I looked and I’m like, that’s a weird thing. And this lady looks at me, she’s like, “it’s like the new gas shortage.” And you know, six months ago she would have said toilet paper, but she said gas. So that’s obviously very top of mind to people. So is there any frequent questions you’ve been getting from your members that you would like to share here that maybe some of our members will be interested in hearing from?

Andrew Gross:
Do you know, it’s funny that you mention that, we just had one come in toDay. Someone was saying that they were traveling from Pennsylvania down to Florida and they were asking, “will I have issues finding gasoline on my trip?” So we’re getting questions like that. And that’s a legitimate question. And it’s also kind of a hard question. It’s like, we’re not exactly sure which route she’s going to take, things like that, but we’re able to tell her that, you know plan ahead, don’t wait till the needle gets on empty before you start looking for gasoline, since you are a AAA member, have the app handy, because at least you’ll be able to see the stations on your route, the prices, and also contact information. You can call ahead and ask them, do you have gas? If they don’t, you can move on to the next station. So we’re getting a lot of questions like that. Will there be gasoline. And also we’re fielding questions from people from other parts of the country. Will there be gasoline? Because they don’t understand that the pipeline wasn’t in their area and we have to stress to people. This is really the Southeastern part of the United States. So if you live in Oregon, uh you’re okay. So there’s, there’s a little bit of handholding going on as well.

Jeff Lenard:
Yeah. And one of the things when we fielded that an awful lot of calls last week at NACS when the Colonial problem emerged. And one of the things that we talked about was the whole concept of the term ‘State of Emergency’ and States of Emergencies allow some non-traditional activities to take place. It allows waivers on hours of operation. It allows potentially greater weights for trucks, for transport trucks. It allows different fuel regulations to be transported. Uh, it allows potential for the Jones Act Waiver. So basically it allows a whole bunch of waivers allows the government to jump in and repair something in, in a non-traditional way. But when people hear the phrase, state of emergency, they think one thing, where’s the topper where where’s the plastic bags, I’m going to the gas station and maybe we need a new word or something like that. But I absolutely understand what you’re hearing from your members and it’s “is it safe?” And if there is that one place, like Carolyn said, they don’t have socks and one place doesn’t have gas. Somebody is going to put two and two together and it’s like, Oh no, it’s starting all over again. Um, but everything that we’re seeing right now looks like we’re going to be around where we expect it to be for Memorial Day. And Andrew, the, when you had mentioned where demand will be it’s going to be dramatically more than last year, but a little less than previous years.

Andrew Gross:
That’s right.

Jeff Lenard:
Were you looking also at any areas that may have greater demand? Is it going to be areas that are in warmer weather climates or near natural um…

Carolyn Schnare:
Beaches!

Jeff Lenard:
Yes, beaches or amusement parks or anything like that?

Andrew Gross:
You’re usual great vacations spots are right back up there again this year, you know, your Orlandos, Las Vegas, Myrtle Beach, Denver, Nashville. These are all the places where based on our bookings, people are very interested in going. So we’re expecting that for this Memorial Day weekend, those are going to be hotspots. And you can, you can bet that Memorial Day is a great way of sort of gauging the temperature of what summer’s gonna look like. So if there you have a robust Memorial Day travel period, you can bet that summer is going to be robust as well. And that’s, that’s kind of what we’re predicting right now. People are just, people are more confident. You know, they see the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of this pandemic, more people are getting vaccinated. People are feeling better about the economy. We know consumer sentiment is up. So folks are feeling more confident about getting out and traveling. But you notice the 37 million traveling for Memorial Day 34 million are going to go by car. So while they’re comfortable about traveling, they like the control aspect of being in a car because you can decide when you want to go, where you want to stop, who you want to have in the car with you. And you can, you know, not always have to wear a mask when you’re in the car. Though, we tell people to keep that mask handy, because, you know, you may need to wear it when you go into a store or stop places. You know, we’re not out of the woods entirely.

Carolyn Schnare:
And that’s a great point and a great point to reiterate that you know, rules are different in every state and every retailer. And I mean, even tomorrow, we’ll find a different set of rules that we might want to tell people. So just keep your eyes and ears open. And I guess one of my other questions was, are you thinking people are taking long trips. So in other words, a lot of rest stops are like you know, just quick stops just to go in and get what they’re going to move on to the next one. Are you thinking more local where they’re just going point A to point B, but staying closer to home.

Andrew Gross:
Well, Memorial Day weekend, since it’s only five Days, generally, you don’t see the Great American Road Trip that you would see over the summer that people will save that for summertime. Sso when we look at the 37 million who are going to be traveling for Memorial Day the holiday period, that’s 50 miles away from home or more, so we know they’re going to travel, but are they gonna, you know, is this the time to drive to the grand Canyon and back? Probably not depending on where you are, but you may drive a couple of states. You may go to the beach, you may do something like that.

Jeff Lenard:
Yeah. It’s interesting that traditionally, we look at Memorial Day, we look at 4th of July and we look at Labor Day and we look at those as three big, long weekend summer activities. And I think beyond that with a pandemic, they all mean a little bit more this year. Um, Memorial Day could be the precursor that says, look, we’re really close to normal. 4th of July, you’re hearing a lot of places are saying we are fully back. Chicago, for instance, it has that as the date at which a hundred percent capacity for meetings and things like that. And we’re hearing Labor Day is looking like it’s going to be the point at which a lot of businesses will be fully back to staff. So you’re going to see the commuter traffic. So Memorial Day linked to 4th of July linked to Labor Day, I think is probably more critical to people’s thinking, particularly if you sell gas, than any year I can recall. Um, I think people are very much looking forward to how this all plays out. And related to your consumer surveys that you do, you mentioned the, the online bookings and that’s, I think very intriguing to, to link those two together. Um, are you also in the online booking, seeing types of hotels, for instance, that are, or motels, that are, that are more prominent? I know last year we saw that motels did quite well because some of the factors that you raised earlier, you’re in control. You only go in one door, you don’t go into a big atrium. Um, are hotels coming back based on some of the bookings that you’re seeing?

Andrew Gross:
Hotels are coming back now, I can’t really break it down by the type per se, but I can say that just on our hotel bookings, we’ve seen an increase in 14 of the past 15 weeks and that’s a 200% increase over, you know, just in January. So we’re already thinking that people are planning ahead. People are, they really want to get out and travel. They really want to get out and spend, and they’re confident. And it’s like a cork that has been removed from a bottle. People are just feeling confident, particularly the ones who are fully vaccinated. And we think, we think this is just going to be building.

Carolyn Schnare:
Yeah. And I think I agree with you. I know spring break I went on the road and went down to the beach. I’m thinking I am your survey respondent because all the things you’re saying is what I’ve done, but it definitely feels a little busier out there. The, the roads, the highways, 95, being on the East Coast, Interstate-95 was a lot busier than normally would be. Um, you know, another thing too is, is sports. And this is something I was thinking about as I was preparing – is my son plays baseball and they have a tournament this weekend and it’s not unusual. Well, last year there were no tournaments at this time, but now there’s all these sport tournaments. And you know, they’re back in the swing, forgive my pun. But it’s like this one is about 55 miles away and that’s something that we’re going to be doing. So I’m saying that more as a point to our retailers and our listeners that when you see a sports team show up in your store certainly welcome them. But I think that I would imagine that they’re, you know, they have to stay in hotels, they have to do all the things. So I would imagine do those kinds of activities fit into what you saw when you were surveying members?

Andrew Gross:
Well, sure. And we always tell people that you know, plan ahead when you, when you do book your hotel to make sure that the hotel has the type of requirements, safety requirements that you’re comfortable with, because it’s always about your sort of personal safety and your level of comfort. So, you know, always call ahead to the hotel to make sure that the safety protocols that they have in place are something you’re comfortable with because we know that not everybody’s fully vaccinated, and even if you are fully vaccinated, you still need to take precautions. Cause you know, even like I’m fully vaccinated and yet I know that I’m only protected, what, 90 to 95%. So I’m still going to be very careful this year and probably for the rest of my life, cause who knows where COVID is going to go. So these are all, every aspect of our lives has sort of shifted – that we’ve all gone through a huge shift. And so we’re kind of, there’s a new…I don’t want to say a new normal ’cause that’s a little cliche, but in effect that it’s real, you know, this is a real thing that we’re experiencing. And as we begin to begin traveling again and doing new things they’re going to be some additional aspects to it. So, and then after awhile, it’ll just be almost second nature, I think.

Jeff Lenard:
I loved earlier that you, you called Memorial Day five a Day weekend. And I think some people are saying, well, I only get the Monday off, but when you look at Memorial Day, you look at it as a five Day weekend that starts to build on Thursday afternoon. And that’s the first wave. That’s the first rush.

Andrew Gross:
That’s when tell people that’s the worst time to leave. It’s like the Thursday before any big holiday weekend is always the crunch. That’s when everybody’s hitting the road, you know, three to five in the afternoon. And that’s when we tell people don’t do that because you will then be stuck in traffic because as more people are going back to work, we’re seeing like the rush hour traffic is beginning to develop major metropolitan locations around the country. So you combine that with folks leaving to go on vacation. You remember those traffic jams you mentioned that you so long for? You may be in one of those, if you decide to hit the road at 3:45 on Thursday afternoon. So we’re telling people, you know what, maybe go a little earlier or go a little later or maybe go Friday.

Carolyn Schnare:
Are you seeing a lot of trends or changes in now to a typical, \I should say typical 2019, with people who are remote working now because I know that I am having a whole lot of trouble finding a place to go this summer. It’s hard to find rentals because I think people either aren’t leaving them or they’re already rented and they’re renting them for two and three weeks, as opposed to the, you know, the five days given that people aren’t…except for Jeff who enjoys traffic…the people who aren’t doing the traffic or commuting, or you think people are staying longer, or maybe they’re even leaving and making it a two and a half week trip?

Andrew Gross:
I don’t know…(laughs).

Carolyn Schnare:
Oh, I stumped him! I stumped him!

Andrew Gross:
You just stumped me on that one! I just don’t know on a forecast, how long people are going to stay, you know. We know that they’re making their booking and they’re exploring, booking on a trip, but how long they’re going to go. And if they’re going to leave, if they really liked the place. That’s, that’s, that’s another question. .

Jeff Lenard:
And a little bit outside of the realm of the traditional survey that we’re talking about with Memorial Day is we breached $3 gas for the first time, since 2014. Now convenience stores sell 80% of the gas in the country. So where it would be a bad idea if we make a prediction related to prices ’cause that’s collusive behavior and the guy talking, making the prediction, starts to wear orange pretty soon. So we won’t do that, but we can ask you. Some of the things now that we’ve seen $3 gas here for multiple reasons, one of them being the switch over to summer blend fuel that typically reaches its apex mid-May. We also have the Colonial Pipeline, but you’re also reporting on $3 gas and while we hit $3 gas for the first time in seven years, it didn’t seem to be that big national story that I would have expected after seven years of not seeing a three.

Andrew Gross:
Well it did a lot of it did kind of coincide with the Colonial Pipeline too. We kind of pop in because, you know, the week before the pipeline went offline, we were like $2.93, $2.94 and then Colonial Pipeline happened. And all of a sudden it just began to creep up. And how much of that was directly attributed to Colonial Pipeline? You could probably say a fair amount. So now we’re like $3 to $3.05 and you know, it’s funny how, you know, things spike right away. And then it takes a while for them to slowly moderate and drop back down.

Jeff Lenard:
Yeah. And I know there’s a lot in terms of the extra costs related to getting that fuel. And you know, we like happy customers. We like when prices are lower. When you’re a convenience store and somebody can get in and out and get gas without paying too much, then they tend to go inside the store and they may get that sandwich. They may get a couple other items and margins inside the store are usually better than they are at the pump. So we like one-stop shopping for all of that. We like when they travel miles and when we see smiles, whether or not it’s under the mask or without the mask. We’ll take them both ways.

Carolyn Schnare:
I like that! Miles and smiles.

Andrew Gross:
Miles and smiles. That’s good. Well, one, one thing we do know that even with gasoline prices higher than they’ve been since 2014 in the past, we have realized that higher gas prices do not deter travel. People will figure out another way to save money. Then maybe they won’t eat out as much, or maybe they won’t have as quite as extravagant meal or they may do more free activities, but they will travel and they will stop. And they may, instead of getting a big meal, they may purchase snacks instead, but they are going on that trip.

Carolyn Schnare:
So to that point, since we’re talking about other things people do other than filling up their car, do you have any advice for retailers for convenience stores maybe to attract customers or attract AAA members? I know you have an app. You said that helps them find whether they have gas, but more or less, you know, what the pricing is. Um, do you have any advice for maybe in store offers things that they want to call out to customers, things that customers or AAA members or people would be looking for?

Andrew Gross:
Well, you know, we are still advising people to follow CDC guidelines and also follow common sense and realize that, you know, we’re not out of the woods yet. So keep your hand sanitizer in your car, keep your mask handy, keep all of that available. But you know, sometimes masks, you take them on and off enough they break. So being able to conveniently find a place that is still selling masks, still selling hand sanitizer, having pre-packaged items, your waters, your sodas, your sandwiches, things that maybe you could just run in and grab out of a frozen case or out of a refrigerated case. That’s a little easier and a little less contact than saying, you know, going to the more traditional soda machine and putting your cup in and getting the water, less things to touch. You know, we are, we’re very mindful of that because like I said, we’re not out of the woods yet in terms of this pandemic.

Jeff Lenard:
And , it has been two years since a lot of people have taken a summer vacation of any great magnitude. And yes, this is not necessarily the summer vacation, but a little bit of muscle memory to come back in terms of what can you do on a long weekend to extended time, five days, hopefully not too many traffic jams. Just give them to me because of karma.

Carolyn Schnare:
Maybe it’s like the baby steps, baby steps. Let’s try this tiny vacation first.

Andrew Gross:
It will be interesting when we look back at this, at this period to see if particularly last summer when those folks who did travel, things were so locked down, but people decided to go by car versus planes, just because of all the restrictions. And plus, where were you going to go on a plane? You could pay the plane ticket, go somewhere. And then there was nothing to do cause everything was closed. Did people fall back in love with the great American car trip because maybe the last car trip they took or was with their parents back in the sixties or the seventies car travel was a lot different back in those days. And now we have our apps. Are there more places to stop? You can, you can sort of plan ahead. It’s more convenient to plan ahead now, even our TripTiks the AAA TripTrik, the classic. Remember the little flip book you would flip through and you’d be holding in one hand and driving and looking on the map. Now it’s, it’s an app on your phone and it just will tell you what’s coming up, what’s available where to stop, you know, and it’s, everything is just more at your fingertips now. So maybe in a way, people began to fall back in love with the Great American Road Trip and they realized, wow, this is, this is kind of fun. This is kind of great. I’m going to do this.

Carolyn Schnare:
Everybody just go do that. He said we should. Um, and one thing also I want to do is give some of the listeners some of the resources that you mentioned too. Where are some places that they, well, first of all, where can they find more about the survey and the results that you mentioned and also maybe ask you some of those questions and and also where to find TripTiks?

Andrew Gross:
AAA.com, that’s your source for everything. And also if you’re interested in the particulars of the our travel forecast for Memorial Day and looking at also toward the summer, you can go to the AAA Newsroom and everything – all of our stories are put up there and it’s updated constantly.

Jeff Lenard:
Well, thank you, Andrew. Uh, I look forward to being in the only traffic jam, so everybody else has a good time go out there on the road, see some cool things, experience some, get some memories with that family because there’s some good ones to catch and it’s been a while for a lot of us to just rev up those engines. So thank you so much, Andrew. We’d love to talk to you again about some of the trends that you see out there. And hopefully the Memorial Day five day road trip will be a good indicator of a real rapid recovery and a lot of good times as we continue.

Andrew Gross:
Thank You.

Jeff Lenard:
Thank you also for listening to Convenience Matters.

Convenience Matters Outro:
Convenience Matters is brought to you by NACS and produced in partnership with Human Factor. For more information, visit convenience.org.