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Labor Day weekend typically sees people traveling to their favorite destination for that last bash of summer.

However, this year AAA expects to see a slight decrease in travelers on the roadways and in the air.

The agency predicts nearly 1 percent fewer people will travel this year compared to last, said Gregg Laskowski, a spokesman for AAA Auto Club South which covers Florida, Georgia, western Tennessee, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Florida is expected to see 1.9 million people traveling by motor vehicles and aircraft, while nationwide the estimate is 34.4 million.

Laskowski said two reasons could be keeping people from traveling this year: Pending hurricanes and gasoline prices.

Gasoline prices stayed flat last year, but that may not be the case this year.

“The rumors are true,” Laskowski said about gasoline prices going up for the long holiday weekend.

“The reason is really simple,” he said. “This week we’ve seen crude oil prices go higher because of speculation of the damage Gustav can do with the ... (offshore oil fields) infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico off the Texas coast. Tuesday morning, when the markets open, if we know that Gustav is going to be moving directly to Texas, you would see crude oil prices spike.”

Tropical Storm Gustav is expected to be a Category 3 hurricane before making landfall sometime Tuesday along the Gulf Coast between Florida’s Panhandle and Texas, according to the five-day cone issued at 2 p.m. Friday.

“If we see the worst case … Gustav does a lot of damage in Texas and Louisiana, we would expect to see a spike and the prices jump a little bit,” he said. “For every 10 dollars increase in price (for a barrel of crude oil), that would typically translate to 25 cents a gallon at the pump.

A spike in gasoline prices isn’t something Larry Devlin, co-owner of Cigarettes and Things Smoke Shop in South Fort Myers, wants to see.

Business has been down for him, just like everyone else.

“It seems like we’re not getting as many weekend people from Miami and the East Coast,” he said. In the past, he’s seen customers who made day trips to come to Southwest Florida for its beaches.

“It used to be a nice little niche in the summertime,” Devlin said. “I’m not seeing any of those people. People aren’t traveling as far to buy things.”

David Downing, a customer, agreed.

“We don’t go out of our way to go to, like, Home Depot,” said the Lehigh Acres resident who was working in the area Thursday, and stopped in to purchase a few cigars. “We do a lot more around the house.”

Downing said he even purchases fewer cigars than before because the downturn in the economy and fuel prices have caused him to be more aware of costs.

That’s something Devlin is all too familiar with, he said. Many people who used to purchase boxes of cigars have gone to purchasing three or four single ones at a time. People are smoking less expensive brands of tobacco, and his suppliers are requiring larger minimum orders.

But the gasoline prices are what caused Devlin to take a short cruise this year instead of driving or flying somewhere for vacation.

“The gas is so expensive and the air fares are so expensive,” he said. “They have a fuel charge on ships, but it’s still less expensive.”

E-mail Valli Finney at vallimfinney@yahoo.com