Tourism trends and the business cycle : Tourism in recession

This paper outlines the nature of the current economic recession in the USA. It discusses the impact of the recession on tourism volume, travel-generated employment, and travel prices. It presents data from the Data Center's monthly National Travel Survey on how individual types of travel and types of travellers are adjusting to the overall decline in economic activity. Finally, conclusions are presented to help planners, marketers and policymakers deal more effectively with future recessions. This paper forms part of a more general study; a similar discussion of travel in periods of economic recovery is planned for later publication.