When the travel industry bites a lemon, luggage makers pucker; since fewer people are taking vacations, luggage sales are expected to be down 5 percent for 1991.
But as the luggage market adapts to tough times, it is producing changes that will interest people who are preparing to pack for school or others who, like me, have decided their current bags are too battered to continue.The strong trend in consumer choices is away from hard suitcases and toward duffel bags, mainly big, some of which can be carried either by shoulder strap or handles, or enlarged versions of gym bags, soft satchels, big pouches, boat bags and the like.
This shift is a direct outgrowth of the virtual halt in foreign travel during the Persian Gulf war and the continuing impact of the recession.
"People aren't taking big trips," Stan Schwarz, president of the Innovation luggage chain, said recently standing on the sidewalk in front of his Manhattan store. "They are just going over the bridge to visit an aunt."
He circled his cigar toward the north, in the general direction of the George Washington Bridge. "So they want casual bags, not a traditional suitcase to hold 55 changes of clothes."
He pointed to a window full of soft-sided bags in bright colors. "These things flatten to store, a good thing in New York," he said, this time waving south.
"The soft category is up 28 percent at Innovation since January," Schwarz said. Since overall sales will be flat or down, he said this growth was mainly at the expense of the traditional suitcase.
Robert K. Ermatinger, executive vice president of the Luggage and Leather Goods Manufacturers of America, confirmed the trends noted at Innovation, not surprising since Schwarz said he is the largest luggage dealer in North America.
Ermatinger said that sales of big duffels rose 26 percent last year, and that other gainers were also soft-sided: garment bags and small totes. Bags that fold inside others, allowing for expansion on the return trip or for segregating dirty laundry, are increasingly popular.
Chiao is offering one called a pancake, flat and round, as the name implies, which unzips around the edge to form a cylinder-shaped bag. It is $35.
With the trend, the quality of casual bags is improving: stronger fabrics, better waterproofing and stouter zippers.
In dollar volume, Innovation says its biggest seller is the Samsonite Silhouette 4 Ultra Valet fabric garment bag, model 617633, which sells for $220.
The second seller is also a garment bag, the Boyt Mach II 42-inch long Walk-In Closet, model 34609, which sells for $370. The best-seller on the basis of unit sales represents the new trend. It is the black Lucas expandable carry-on, a duffel-style bag that expands, with zippers, from 21 inches to 25 inches in length. This one, model 872108, costs $70.
If you watch the flow at the airports, you see instantly that foreign travelers coming to the United States are still carrying "traditional" molded suitcases, and very big ones at that.
Luggage handlers and luggage makers say that if a year's worth of belongings is going to travel as baggage, the hard case is the only sure way to get them there unshredded.
At the Innovation store, customers from overseas were kneeling down to study the insides of big, hard cases.
"Can't sell soft sides to them," Schwarz said. "For security, nothing matches the hard Pullman."
But Consumer Reports did not concur when it evaluated luggage in the June 1990 issue. Eggs were wrapped in padding and placed in both types of bags. Then the bags were tumbled in a rotating drum intended to replicate the sort of bouncing around that bags get from airlines.
The eggs in the soft-sided bags survived better than those in the hard bags, which transmitted the impact of the falls. However, when the bags were laid on the floor and a 200-person stepped on them, the hard bags protected the eggs better.
On a hard bag, the quality of the latch and lock is of great importance; on a fabric bag, it is the zipper that should be strong.
The hard cases are themselves heavier than canvas ones, and bigger - 29 to even 32 inches wide - and trying to move these things fully laden is difficult. If you must carry all your bags yourself, as when you pass Customs, the big cases almost invariably require attached wheels and a pull strap at one corner.
But anyone who has used a strap to drag a full suitcase has discovered that they are top-heavy and fall sideways as you turn a corner. Also, when the bags pop out on the luggage carousel, the little metal casters with sharp metal bases seem to cause many tears in other fabric suitcases. Often enough a wheel is gone, probably a victim of a similar mischance.
Some suitcases have larger plastic or hard rubber wheels, set into the corners, and these balance better, although they do not swivel for steering. The models that have the wheels on the shorter dimension of an oblong case, like those Asian students seem to favor, are rolled along rather than dragged, but one per person is about the limit here.
Most air travelers believe that the amount of carry-on luggage has increased, apparently because flight attendants are loath to challenge travelers in a time when planes are flying nowhere near their load limits. Salespeople in luggage departments around New York say that customers are still worried about losing their bags and generally want to buy items they can carry aboard.
However, according to Department of Transportation figures, travelers' complaints to the airlines about "mishandled" luggage - lost, damaged, delayed or pilfered - were down in June this year, compared with June last year.
The figures for 1991 showed a total of 182,902 customer complaints to the separate airlines, a rate of 5.04 for each 1,000 domestic passengers, as against the total of 230,693 complaints in 1990, a rate of 6.56 for each 1,000 domestic passengers.
The number of complaints addressed to the department itself about mishandled baggage was 109 in June 1991, as against 91 in June 1990. Hoyte B. Decker Jr., the assistant director for consumer affairs in the department, said there was no way to judge why the total of complaints to airlines - necessary for any restitution - and of complaints to the department went in opposite directions.
There is one factor favoring bigger bags: on domestic trips, airlines charge by the bag, not by the pound, for surplus luggage. The amount can be pretty big, but varies by airline and even by city, according to Bill Jackman of the Air Transport Association. As a sample, American and United generally accept three bags free and charge $45 each for bags number 4 to 7 and $65 each for bags 8, 9 and 10. Continental's surcharge begins at $35 a bag.