A bad economy usually winds up affecting every sector of the business community. People still need to buy food but the supermarkets are affected because people are buying less food and spending less money each week on groceries. Another segment of the business community that stands to see some difficult times with the current economic crisis is the travel industry. The travel industry can sometimes be taken for granted but an understanding of how travel can be hit by difficult economic times can also get us to understand the wide reaching effects of an economic crisis.

Recreational travel is greatly affected during tough economic times. People still seek the escape of a vacation as they did during good financial times, they may actually seek the escape of a vacation more during difficult economic times, but people tend to find less expensive alternatives to travel when money is tight. The airlines can see a decrease in customers due to hard economic times as more people look to cheaper travel alternatives such as the bus or a train. However in most cases, when gas prices allow, most people prefer the convenience and ease of driving their own vehicle to vacation. They do not need to pay extra to check their luggage and they can travel however they want.

The ripple effect of a lack of recreational travel hits all of the hospitality industry. People are not traveling as far to go on vacation so there is less air travel which means less people in the airport terminals to support the businesses in those terminals. Cross country trips are less frequent and hotels and restaurants are seeing the effects of a lack of travel.

Recreational travel is not the only kind of travel that the travel industry relies on to make a profit. The business traveler is a large part of the travel business and these days business travel is being cut by companies all over the world. Rather than get on a plane to meet a customer across the globe many companies are turning to teleconferencing or even a simple phone conference to replace the face to face meeting. But there is more lacking in the business travel arena than just face to face business meetings.

Companies are no longer holding large and lavish conventions for customers and partners and this reduces travel as well. Companies are finding alternatives for on site support. Rather than paying to send a technician to the customer site the companies are finding ways to supply that onsite support via the internet or the phone. While these tough economic times may be a time for internet innovation and a great time for internet companies to invest in new technologies it is proving to be a very difficult time for companies that derive their revenue from travel and most companies all over the world are cutting travel budgets and finding new ways of doing long distance business.

Tough economic times become a vicious spiral for the travel industry especially air travel companies. There are less people flying so the airlines are forced to charge more money per ticket to make up for the revenue lost due to a drop in the number of people flying. However those ticket price increases tend to drive away the business and recreational traveler and cause an even further downward slide for the airlines. Travel is hit especially hard in tough economic times.