WANDERLUST RULED IN SUMMER '96.

Byline: Edwin McDowell The New York Times

Vacationers have taken to the roads and the air in record numbers this summer, undaunted by fires in national parks, power failures in the West, a hurricane threat that forced widespread evacuations in the Southeast and unseasonably cold, rainy weather from New England to the Carolinas. Not even the crash of TWA Flight 800 curbed their wanderlust.

``From every report we've gotten, we feel confident it was another record summer,'' the third in a row, said Shawn Flaherty, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit Washington-based Travel Industry Association of America, about the travel season which officially ends this weekend. She said that the number of individual trips of at least 100 miles taken by Americans during June, July and August would apparently rise 2 percent from last year's record.

As another example, the number of miles flown by paying passengers increased 6.5 percent in July over a year earlier, and the percentage of seats occupied by paying passengers on airline flights rose to 74.3 percent in July from 71.7 percent a year earlier, according to the Air Transport Association. In fact, the seat occupancy, or ``load factor,'' for the entire industry so far this year is 71.7 percent, far higher than 1995's record 67 percent, which was the highest since World War II.

To the surprise of some travel officials, the crash of Paris-bound TWA Flight 800 on July 17 appeared to have had no measurable impact on international travel.

``There was some talk at the time of that happening, but the people I talk to say there's been no impact,'' said Jon F. Ash, managing director of Global Aviation Associates, a consulting firm in Washington.

``Instead, demand for Europe is probably up 4 percent this summer, and load factors almost everywhere are very high.'' American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines also say their advance bookings are well ahead of last year's.

Indeed, Americans apparently fulfilled European Travel Commission predictions of a record 4.9 million American visitors this summer. The commission expects a record 9 million for all of 1996.

United Airlines averaged more than 80 percent of its seats filled this summer on its routes to Europe. And its nine daily flights to Hawaii averaged 93.9 percent two weeks ago. With practically every flight full, the lead item in United's employee newsletter said: ``Going to Hawaii? Make backup travel plans.''

Backup plans were not a bad idea on the ground either. Marriott International said its occupancy rate this summer averaged as much as 12 percent above the national average, which would put Marriott occupancies around 80 percent. Occupancy at Manor Care's Choice International hotels - Comfort, Quality, Clarion, Sleep, Econo Lodge and Rodeway - averaged 9.2 percent higher this summer than last summer. Both the increases are exceptionally strong for the hotel industry, and come on top of a strong summer last year.

The reasons for the disaster-defying summer, tourist officials agree, are a relatively strong American economy, the dollar's gathering strength against European currencies and a decline in gasoline prices from their peak of $1.38 a gallon May 24 (although still almost 8 cents a gallon higher than in August 1995).

Also, ``You had more air fare sales than I can ever remember, although some were from a higher base than last year,'' said Jerry Cheske, a spokesman for the American Automobile Association in Heathrow, Fla.

In late June, Continental Airlines slashed domestic fares as much as 40 percent for travel through September, and other carriers basically matched the sale prices on directly competitive routes.

Yet while air fares, gasoline prices and the cost of meals and lodging obviously have an effect on travel, attitudes may be even more decisive. Statistical evidence suggests that Americans increasingly regard travel and tourism as an important part of their lifestyle.

Total trips taken by Americans increased 45 percent from 1985 to 1995, even as the population grew only 10 percent, according to a survey of 18,000 households by the Travel Industry Association of America. And the percentage of American adults who took at least one trip of 100 miles or more away from home in 1995 rose to 76 percent from 63 percent a decade earlier.

The automobile association predicted last spring that summer vacationers would spend an average of 8.5 nights away from home this summer, compared with 7.9 nights last year, but that a family of four would spend the same $1,076 this year as last, and Cheske said the figures still looked to be on target.

Jim Sortino, owner of the Sleep Inn in Sandusky, Ohio, the site of Cedar Point Amusement Park, said that even though bad weather kept people away in May and June, July and August resulted in one of Sandusky's biggest seasons ever.

California has had an especially strong summer tourist season. Although attendance was down at Sequoia National Park, whose giant, ancient trees for a time were threatened by wildfires, Universal Studios and other theme parks chalked up record attendance, and Los Angeles and San Diego enjoyed their highest hotel occupancies in years. San Diego tourism officials said the Republican convention, which drew thousands of delegates and journalists, was an added bonus for the city's hotels and restaurants.

Orlando, Fla., and surrounding towns also had good summers, as did even steamy New Orleans, which was host to this summer's Junior Olympics and increased its convention business with lower summer rates for hotels.

The national parks appear to be ``booming as usual,'' said Elaine Sevy, a National Parks Service spokeswoman, despite the problems at Sequoia and at the Cape Hatteras, N.C., National Seashore, where visitors fled Hurricane Bertha's fury.

Attendance at Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina has been up slightly over last summer, Bill Miller, a spokesman there, said, adding that it might have been even higher, were it not for the Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

While the Games proved to be a bonanza for Atlanta and nearby cities - with almost 2 million visitors spending an estimated $4 billion, according to the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism - tourist industry officials from Wilmington, N.C., with its miles of ocean-front beaches, to the Florida state line said they had received little spillover.

A sampling of some smaller attractions turned up a mixed record. The Lawrence Welk homestead in Strasburg, N.D., had a ``very good'' summer, according to Rosemary Schaefbauer, the president of Pioneer Heritage Inc., which maintains the site in memory of the musician who died in 1992. Overall attendance is up only about 2 or 3 percent from the usual summer average of 5,000 visitors, but souvenir sales have risen, she said.

The National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City is off about 7 percent this summer, according to M.J. Van Deventer, the director of publications, perhaps because of a $36 million expansion program in advance of the Sept. 22 opening of the hall's yearlong Frederick Remington exhibition - the biggest Remington exhibition ever assembled.

But, Van Deventer added, hundreds of cars with out-of-state license plates come to Oklahoma City each weekend to view the site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, where 168 people were killed in an April 1995 bombing.

Across the country, vacationers with advance reservations still flocked to the beaches from the New Jersey shore to as far south as Myrtle Beach, S.C. - even though it sometimes meant wearing sweaters and sleeping beneath blankets.

While beach concessionaires suffered from the cold, rainy weather, tourists found other places to spend their dollars.

``If they didn't go to the beach, they went shopping, or ate out more often,'' said Linda Conlin, the director of tourism for New Jersey. ``So many of our retailers still benefited.'' More than half of New Jersey's $22.9 billion in tourist revenue last year came from the shore communities, including Atlantic City, whose casinos appear to have profited from the forgettable weather.

Las Vegas, the other major gambling mecca, had a big summer, as usual, with hotel occupancy up about 3 percent. When the second blackout hit the West this summer and knocked out power for several hours for millions of people in at least nine states in August, Las Vegas casinos simply switched to backup generators, and the good times continued to roll.

``The blackout affected air conditioners and electricity in private houses,'' said Myram Borders, a spokeswoman for Las Vegas. ``So a lot of local residents went to the casinos to eat in order to stay cool.''

Adversity had its compensations elsewhere, as well. When the approach of Hurricane Bertha forced Bill and Gloria Gillette of Cleveland to vacate the Outer Banks of North Carolina a day before their vacation was to end, they and their two children drove inland to Virginia's Skyline Drive and made an unscheduled stop at Monticello, the home and burial place of Thomas Jefferson, who designed it.

``The evacuation turned out to be a bonus,'' said Gillette, the executive editor of Hotel & Motel Management magazine, ``because we got to see another part of the country.''

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Photo

Photo: Tourists take in the National Aquarium's rain forest in Baltimore during the Fourth of July weekend.

The New York Times