Record travel expected this July 4th, AAA said

The upcoming July Fourth holiday weekend in the United States may be the busiest ever for road travel thanks in part to low gas prices, motor club AAA said.

"Spurred by the lowest gas prices since 2005, more people than ever are planning to travel this Independence Day weekend," AAA President the CEO Marshall Doney said in a statement Monday.

According to the motor club, an estimated 43 million people in the United States are expected to travel during the long holiday weekend, which will be the busiest on record if forecasts are accurate.

With gas prices about 16 cents less than they were on average this time last year, AAA said U.S. drivers may see the lowest prices at the pump in more than 10 years this coming weekend. With that, the motor club said it expects about 84 percent of those travelers will do so by road, an increase of 1.2 percent from last year.

For Memorial Day, the first long holiday weekend of the year for the United States, AAA said more than 38 million people were expected to travel, the highest number for that weekend since 2005. About 90 percent of those travelers got to their destinations in a passenger vehicle.

In terms of savings at the pump, AAA estimates holiday travelers spent about $20 billion less collectively on fuel than during the same period so far last year, which means consumers have more money available for travel. That, in turn, should provide a form of de facto stimulus for industries that depend on tourism for revenue, adding to positive trends already emerging in the U.S. labor sector.

"We are well on our way for 2016 to be a record-breaking year for summertime travel," Doney said. "This trend is welcome news for the travel industry and a sign that Americans are taking to our nation's highways and skies like never before."