Obama Travel Mania

More than 1 million spectators are expected to line the streets of Washington, D.C and celebrate Barack Obama’s inauguration Jan. 20, bolstering the tourism of the nation’s capital.  But will they all finding a flight and a place to stay?

 ”There is a terrific amount of interest . . .  in Obama and his campaign, and that will equate to additional interest in Washington, D.C.,” William Hanbury, president and chief executive of the tourism bureau Destination D.C., told the Globe and Mail. The public’s  love affair with the president-elect continues to sizzle, and Washington, D.C. believes it will get an “Obama bounce” in tourism, estimating at least 1.5 million people, from the U.S. and abroad, will visit during the inauguration ceremonies in January.

It also seems that no one will have a problem getting a flight. Almost all airlines are offering added flights to the D.C. area, including  AirTran Airways,  US Airways and Southwest Airlines.

For hotels, bookings are rising anywhere near D.C.  “January is going to make our year,” Kari Koskela, manager of the Ritz Carlton Washington, told the Globe and Mail.

Hotels as far flung as Pennsylvania have been filled since the election. The Holiday Inn Gettysburg was booked solid last week. Another neighboring hotel, the Wyndham Gettysburg, is 65 percent booked and its general manager expects to sell out completely by January.

Most visitors will be celebrating the inauguration, but the 240,000 tickets to the inauguration ceremony are much more difficult to find. If you haven’t contacted your congressman or woman by now, it’s unlikely you will probably get one. So far, in New Jersey, 90,000 people have asked for tickets. For others, the tickets will be given away by lottery.

For those not traveling to D.C. and still wanting an Obama fix, there are other places where Obama tourism is rising. Some  venues include Obama’s childhood home in Hawaii, a 10th-floor apartment in Honolulu where he lived with his mom and grandparents. Other places where he lived,  like Indonesia, Kansas and Kenya, Los Angeles, New York and Boston  – are now open season for tourists.  Obama tourism is so huge that the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau’s Web site  now highlights places where the Obamas eat and shop. (If you’re interested, they like Mexican and soul food, as well as frequenting a local bookstore.)

Photo courtesy of www.barackobama.com