• by John Gaffney , April 10, 2003

Want to know where the travel business is these days? You may need to go no further than this. For the second straight week, AAA's Internet TripTik routings (trips members took in their cars) increased to near their pre-Iraqi war levels.

"As more Americans look to resume their normal routine, it is becoming apparent that leisure travel is one of the activities that is benefiting," said Sandra Hughes, vice president of AAA Travel. "The continuation of this trend most likely will depend on how well the war progresses and how much the economy improves within the next several months."

Americans are traveling but they are staying close to home. That means that the TV Upfront market will most likely not contain appreciable participation from airlines, hotels or other resorts that have been hit during the recession and then hammered by Sept. 11. In the post-Iraqi conflict economy, it will still take a long time for the travel industry to rebound. Until that time, spending on network TV may be kept to the major airlines and hotel chains. And that will be at the cut-rate 2002 levels at best.

"As people crawl out of their caves I think you'll see more tourist travelers and you're going to see more business travelers real soon," said Chris Lemley, professor of marketing at Georgia State University. "You know travel was in a zone where it was very hard to plan anything. If the economy is in a down mode, you can plan for that. If it's in an up mode you can plan for that. But if it's in limbo, you can't plan for that. I think the economy is headed for a clear direction."

That clear direction may be a bit late for the local tourist boards and chambers of commerce that also advertise on network TV. According to Cathy Keefe, spokesperson for the Tourist Industries of America, many states are slashing their ad budgets for tourism as well as business development. They're even considering closing entire offices of tourism as the budget axe falls in budget cuts in California and Arizona.

"That would of course be disastrous," Keefe said. "People are doing what they can to ready marketing and advertising plans but in many cases they're looking for partners to carry that out. I don't see any plans to break out nationally."

Keefe said a recent survey showed 81% of all Americans planned to travel domestically this summer, but only 46% had made specific plans. She is hoping that a budget of $50 million at the Commerce Department will help spread the gospel of travel on a national level because it looks like mass market ad campaign won't be around to do it.