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Too Busy To Get A Life? Make Time, Fella...

By Craig Altschul
November 13, 2006

Fed up with the modern vacation amounting to a long weekend or even two weeks a year? OK, take a week in Colorado for Christmas. Then, let's take the whole family to Kitzbuhel for our President's Week. Maybe we close out the season with some spring snow at Mammoth or heli-skiing in the Bugaboos. Sounds good to me. How about you?

"Taking a vacation is always a problem and it usually centers around the lack of time," Joe Robinson, a work/life coach and consultant to the Santa Monica-based Work To Live organization (www.worktolive.info), told The Industry Report. "If people have time, they travel, and that has a huge impact on all segments of tourism."

Robinson gave the example of "Golden Weeks" in China. Apparently people were saving too much money, so the government found a good way for them to spend it. They give people seven days off, three times a year and called them "Golden Weeks." That, in turn, stimulated the economy.

Americans work on average 100 more hours a week than the Japanese, says Robinson. That industrious nation has a law requiring its workers to take two weeks vacation. "They even keep statistics on people who die from overwork and provide benefits to their spouses and children when that happens." Canadians must take two weeks as well.

Anyone who has skied in Europe has gasped when chairlift partners tell them they are on their fourth week and have another left. That's the law.

To belabor the point one more time: The Families and Work Institute reports that only 14 percent of Americans take two weeks or more at a time for vacation.

Robinson believes the shrinking vacation has reached serious proportions. "I think it's a crisis. We don't know 'when' to say 'when' anymore. I call it obsessive-compulsive productivity."

The solution? "The travel and winter sports industry needs to get involved in advocating for more vacation time," he told us. "I can prove that even a one-week vacation helps people physically.

"In fact, time off for men reduced heart attacks by 32 percent; 50 percent for women. Vacations help reduced burnout, though two weeks is preferable for this effect. The industry needs to get together and unify themselves around the concept," Robinson says. "Lobbying is the answer."

He says longer vacations are indeed practical. "Some companies - such as SAS Industries and Jancoa - have tried it and have doubled their profits when people returned to work refreshed after significant vacation time off."

Robinson sees it as "an opportunity for the winter sports travel industry to grow their business. Their competition doesn't really come from other resorts or leisure activities. Their competitor is work. People don't have enough time for ski vacations. Getting behind the movement would generate that time and publicity."

One key proposal brought forth jointly by Work To Live and the Seattle-based Take Back Your Time organization would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to grant three weeks time off for anyone who has worked at a job for a year. The U.S. has no law governing vacations, but 96 other countries do.

Robinson said The Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) became the first travel-related organization to endorse a minimum paid-leave proposal that would protect vacation time in the U.S. The group endorsed the concept at its World Summit in October.

"Unhealthy, overworked, and unbalanced lives cause significant negative societal ripples," ATTA President Shannon Stowell said in announcing his group's endorsement. "The U.S. government must recognize its role in helping people seek and find balance…"

Robinson, perhaps not too tongue-in-cheek, could not resist noting that "travel companies have the same stereotypes as other businesses. The travel people don't practice what they preach and are almost worse than the general public in terms of working long hours and reaching burnout."

So, what do you think? Should the winter sports and travel industry join together to lobby for minimum paid vacation laws? Use the "comments" section below to tell us. Then, take three weeks off.

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Comments

	Wow! Americans on average work "100 more hours a week than the Japanese". I find 50-60 hours a week plenty. Then again, I'm a Canadian who "must take two weeks" off every year. Gotta go, the vacation police are here. :)
	Posted by: Kevin Magnall Red Mountain | November 14, 2006 08:44 AM

Although establishing three weeks as a minimum would be a wonderful step in the right direction, it's not enough because it's really only 15 business days. If you take the first two weeks all at once early in the year, then you have only five measly days to spread out over the next six months. And even tacking on those remaining days to paid holidays doesn't quite cut it in terms of significantly reducing burnout, especially for those who sit in front of a computer for eight hours or more per day. I think the U.S. law should set four weeks as the minimum and reduce the full-time workweek to 32 hours for those who have particularly tedious computer-related jobs (e.g., data entry, writing, programming, etc.).

Posted by: Tom Interval | December 13, 2006 09:41 AM