"Consumer spending is almost 70 percent of the economy. What Americans buy determines their standard of living"

"Travel agent Dottie Williford’s phone won’t stop buzzing: Her high-end clients in Raleigh, N.C., are eager to explore the world again. She stayed up until midnight recently to book two $20,000 cabins on a luxury cruise to the Bahamas in July. The high-end cruise ship normally sails the Mediterranean but was brought back to the Bahamas as Americans feel safer traveling closer to home. Tickets sold out by 9 a.m.

“People don’t usually spend $20,000 to go to the Bahamas, but my clients are,” Williford said. “The first things to sell out were the top category on the ship.”

The luxury travel boom is one of the clearest signs of a budding spending surge by wealthy Americans that is likely to tilt the balance of the economy even further toward the well-off and may deepen economic disparities already heightened by the global pandemic."

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/06/18/luxury-boom-recovery/

"Consumer spending is almost 70 percent of the economy. What Americans buy determines their standard of living"