More Vacations Becoming Brief and Impulsive : Trends: The two-week holiday is being replaced by ‘extended weekends.’ Airlines, hotels and rental car companies are adjusting rates to reflect the change.

Planning a trip soon? Chances are, if you’re like most Americans, it won’t be your only trip this year. And, chances are, it will be a short one. Where Americans spend their vacations and, more important, how they spend them has changed radically in the last 10 years.

What’s changed most?

During the past decade, the concept of the short weekend trip has been embraced by millions of Americans. At the same time, airlines and hotels have adjusted many of their prices to accommodate weekend travelers, offering special “Saturday night stay required” air fares and discounted weekend room rates.

Some statistics: This year, Americans are expected to take almost 500 million weekend trips. Longer excursions continue to decline; estimates are that vacations of 10 nights or more will account for less than 6% of all trips in 1991. Last year, long vacations represented 7% of all trips, the lowest figure ever recorded by the U.S. Travel Data Center.

But now, Americans are not only taking more weekend trips, they are redefining the word weekend itself. Welcome to the short American vacation, now known as the four-day “mini-vacation.”

How has this happened? There are a number of reasons, ranging from the economy to lingering fears about traveling abroad because of potential terrorist activity. And there’s another reason: The emergence of a large number of families with two wage-earners.

“In some cases,” says Kelvin Houchin, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Trusthouse Forte Hotels, “it’s become virtually impossible to coordinate the same long vacation periods when the husband and wife both work. All these factors have combined to set a trend that is not going to go away.”

And in virtually every segment of the travel industry, from airlines and hotels to rental cars and cruises, the vacation market is becoming increasingly geared for the four-day vacation. In fact, most car rental companies now offer weekend rates that begin at noon on Thursday and extend through noon the following Monday.

In many cases, not only are large discounts being offered to attract the mini-vacationers, but many in the travel business are struggling to adapt to the new way in which Americans are booking their vacations: at the last minute.

“When it comes to planning, buying and actually taking vacations, impulse buying has become far more prevalent,” says Houchin. “We’ve noticed it in our volume of reservations calls. People will sit home on a Sunday, get a travel idea and call on Monday to book for the following week.”

And, more often than not, the reservations are for three- and four-day “extended weekends,” not for full seven-day weeks or the traditional two-week annual vacation.

“The days of advance-planning your annual vacation once a year are over,” says Pierre Zreik, managing director of the Ocean Grand Hotel in Palm Beach, Fla. “Almost all of our calls are for three- and four-day trips to come down here, rest and go shopping.”

In the cruise business, three- and four-day cruises are the fastest growing segment of the market. In 1989, 3.75 million people took cruises. More than one-third of them took cruises of less than five days. As a result, a number of cruise lines have launched new ships dedicated to the short cruise market.

Last year, Carnival introduced the Fantasy, a 2,600-passenger vessel intended primarily for extended weekend cruising. And more and more prospective cruise passengers are buying their berths at the last minute.

“At least 80% of our weekend or short-trip reservations are made within seven days of actual arrival,” says Fred Miller, a vice president of sales for the Stouffer Hotel Corp. “The concept of weekend travel or mini-vacations is now equated with the good life, and people are saying, ‘Let’s have a great weekend and go somewhere.”’

But the passion to take short trips may not be just to pursue the good life; there’s also the matter of protecting the pocketbook. In a recent survey of travel agents conducted by Budget Rent a Car, 67% of those responding believed that domestic leisure travel will increase over the next six months. But a majority also believed that Americans will choose domestic destinations closer to home, which in all likelihood will mean shorter trips.

As a result of this trend (plus an an oversupply of hotel rooms), many major hotel chains, from Hilton and Hyatt to Stouffer and Sheraton, are now heavily promoting weekend getaway packages.

Sheraton has just announced its “Endless Weekend” program, now in effect at 250 of its 280 North American properties. The program offers substantial discounts for stays between Thursday and Sunday. Interestingly, the mini-vacation has now extended beyond the continental United States.

Last year, when a number of airlines offered deeply discounted air fares for three- and four-day extended weekend trips from the East Coast to London (as low as $249 round trip), the response was overwhelming.

“What’s fascinating about all of this,” says Trusthouse Forte Hotels’ Houchin, “is that the response was so high considering other statistics.”

One, in particular, is that less than 8% of Americans now have valid passports.

“That figure is bound to jump,” Houchin predicts. “Once more people realize they have the opportunity to do short, inexpensive weekend trips to Europe and even the Caribbean, more people will rush to get passports.”

Some airlines have radically adjusted their weekend fare structure--i.e., increased fares and offered fewer discount seats--to reflect the change in travel habits. In many cases, weekend fares to popular resort areas were already high because most travelers began their vacations on Friday or Saturday and returned a week or two later, on Sunday. Lower fares have always been more available Mondays through Thursdays.

But travelers who chose to take extended weekends could usually get the lower fare by leaving on a Thursday and returning the following Monday. Not necessarily so any more as airlines move to increase Monday-through-Thursday fares to resort destinations.

The hotel business has also had to make some dramatic adjustments. “Customers today are more concerned about value,” says Stouffer’s Miller. “They are buying smarter, and they want to see different places and experience a variety of things in a shorter amount of time. People are stressed, and they need a few short breaks during the year to keep going.”

Not everyone, however, is willing to wave goodby to the traditional long vacation.

“Sure, people are taking shorter and more frequent vacations,” says Marc Yanofsky, senior vice president of marketing for Hyatt Hotels. “But the long vacation will always be there, unless life suddenly becomes less stressful.”