19 March, 2024, 03:00

Planning for National Plan for Vacation Day – Everything you need to know

How much vacation time did you take in 2019? With 2020 officially here, it’s time to start looking at how you want to spend this year’s PTO. Will it be another year of rollover hours? Or, will you be taking some much-deserved R&R? The truth is that most Americans are earning more vacation days in the past few years, yet they continue to let them go unused. In fact, “more than half (55%) of Americans left vacation time on the table at the end of the year in 2018—a total of 768 million unused vacation days.” That’s a lot of cruises in the Mediterranean and seaside bungalows in the Caribbean that are being missed out on. Feeling the FOMO already?

Then you’ll want to mark your calendars for January 28th and start planning for National Plan a Vacation Day, a movement aimed at helping Americans improve their quality of life by committing to using their vacation time and tipping the back the scale of work-life balance. In other words, it’s time to take your vacation back, and National Plan a Vacation Day is here to help!

Time to Reset

While it may be obvious that vacations are good for your overall health and that we should all be taking time off, when it comes down to it, Americans are only using half of their vacation days to do so. This means there is still so much more opportunity to strengthen our personal relationships, improve our physical and mental well-being, and propel our professional performance, all by taking more time off. If the feel-good factors still haven’t motivated you enough to put that work phone on mute, think about it this way: “these are days Americans have earned and when they are completely forfeited (236 million in 2018) they are losing a key benefit, amounting to $65.5 billion. In other words, Americans essentially donated an average of $571 in free work time to their employers.” Let that sink in.

Help Boost the Economy

Apart from personal gains, if everyone took more of their vacation time, it would boost the travel industry and directly impact our economy. This is especially true if you decide to explore the U.S. by traveling domestically. According to the U.S. Travel Association, “If Americans used a few more of their days off to travel, it could generate an additional $151.5 billion in travel spending—benefiting local businesses and regional economies—and create 2 million additional American jobs.” That means by traveling, you can say you contributed to a positive driving force in the U.S. economy—pretty cool if you ask us.

Why Plan?

With our busy lives, it’s hard to make time for ourselves in the day to day, let alone for weeks at a time. By dedicating an entire day to plan out your vacation time, you’ll be that much closer to following through on taking that time off you promised yourself. Planners are 26% more likely to travel during their vacation days than non-planners, and “more than half of planners (56%) have taken a vacation in the last six months, compared to just 36% of non-planners.” Plus, who wouldn’t want a day filled with exploring your dream destinations and bucket list adventures? Whether you’re all about curating the perfect travel pinboard on Pinterest or getting inspired by your favorite travel blogger, start gathering all your resources and making some concrete plans to treat yourself with the time you deserve this year.

Don’t forget to read up on Vacation Planning Hacks to Maximize Your PTO to boost your travel planning toolkit.

Commit to Yourself

Ready to take control of your 2020 vacation plans? The following resorts are holding a special 96-Hour Sale that kicks off on National Plan for Vacation Day on January 28, 2020 and runs until January 31, 2020. Click each property below for more information.

Florida

Caribbean

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