HPU Poll: Majority of North Carolinians Plan to Travel this Summer
Most say inflation and gas prices will impact travel plans.

HIGH POINT, N.C., May 24, 2023 – The latest High Point University Poll finds nearly-three quarters (72%) of North Carolina residents say they will travel within North Carolina this summer. A little over half (51%) said they would travel within the U.S. but outside of North Carolina this summer, and 15% plan to travel internationally. 

About one in five poll respondents say they are more likely (22%) to travel this summer than last summer, and two in five are less likely (41%) to travel. About another one-third (31%) said that their summer travel will be the same this year as it was last year. 

Of those polled, nearly three-quarters say inflation (73%) or gas prices (71%) will affect their likelihood of traveling this summer either a lot or some.

“This HPU Poll has given insight into how North Carolinians are feeling about summer travel plans compared to last year,” says Brian McDonald, associate director of the HPU Poll. “Poll respondents tell us they are planning to mostly travel within the United States.”

Plans for Memorial Day  

The HPU Poll also finds that nearly two-thirds (65%) of North Carolinians plan to stay home on Memorial Day. More than a third (38%) of respondents said they will be attending a picnic or barbecue, and a quarter (26%) say they will be working.

Fewer North Carolina residents say they will be going to places or events related to remembering fallen service members, such as a Memorial Day commemorative event (19%), a veteran's cemetery or grave (19%) or a Memorial Day Parade (16%). 

Other activities that less than a quarter of people in North Carolina will be doing on the holiday include going somewhere else as a vacation day (19%), shopping to take advantage of Memorial Day sales (19%) and traveling to the beach (18%).

Views on Veteran Services 

The HPU Poll also asked North Carolinians how well the U.S. government has done in providing several services for veterans. Over half said that the U.S. government is very well or somewhat well promoting holiday remembrances like Memorial Day (62%), building monuments and memorials to their service (60%), honoring their service (57%), mentioning veterans' service in speeches (56%), and documenting their service by developing archives and museums (55%). Less than half said that the U.S. government is providing health care (39%) and hiring veterans for government jobs (43%).

The poll also asked how well the North Carolina state government has done in providing those same services for veterans. Most respondents said the government here in North Carolina is very well or somewhat well promoting holiday remembrances like Memorial Day (60%), honoring their service (58%), mentioning veterans' service in speeches (53%), building monuments and memorials to their service (50%), and documenting their service by developing archives and museums (51%) either very well or somewhat well. Less said that the North Carolina government is providing health care (40%) or hiring veterans for government jobs (42%). 

HPU Poll 96 was fielded by the High Point University Survey Research Center on May 12 through May 20, 2023 as an online survey using a panel of respondents recruited and maintained by Dynata. Dynata sent invitations to its panel of N.C. respondents and the SRC collected 1,302 responses on its Qualtrics platform. The SRC did all data analysis. The online sample is from a panel of respondents, and their participation does not adhere to usual assumptions associated with random selection. Therefore, it is not appropriate to assign a classic margin of sampling error for the results. In this case, the SRC provides a credibility interval of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points to account for a traditional 95% confidence interval for the estimates (plus or minus 2.7 percentage points) and a design effect of 1.05 (based on the weighting). The data is weighed toward population estimates for age, gender, race/ethnicity and education based on U.S. Census numbers for North Carolina. Factors such as question wording and other methodological choices in conducting survey research can introduce additional errors into the findings of opinion polls. 

Further results and methodological details from the most recent survey and past surveys can be found at the Survey Research Center website. The materials online include past press releases as well as memos summarizing the findings (including approval ratings) for each poll since 2010.  

The HPU Poll reports methodological details in accordance with the standards set out by AAPOR’s Transparency Initiative, and the HPU Survey Research Center is a Charter Member of the Initiative. 

You can follow the HPU Poll on Twitter. Dr. Martin Kifer, chair and associate professor of political science, serves as the director of the HPU Poll, and Brian McDonald is the associate director of the HPU Poll.