No surprise that with our current economic environment, we are seeing people pull in the reigns on their personal spending.  Uncertainy is the worst position to have our economy in, people are not sure if it is okay to spend or should they prepare for the worst for a more severe recession.  It will be interesting to see the online shopping numbers for this holiday season.  I believe there will be growth in those numbers but it will be much a smaller increase than we have seen in recent years.

News:

New research from comScore Inc. shows traffic at travel-related Web sites is plummeting as the economy worsens.

The company, which tracks Web traffic of all kinds, found travel service sites registered a 14 percent decline in October hits compared with last year. Overall, Web traffic at online travel portals was down to 38.2 million hits for the month.

Expedia saw a 25 percent decrease, to 18.2 million hits;Travelocity saw a 16 percent decline; and Orbitz posted a 23 percent dip. Web traffic also fell for nearly every major airline site.

In another sign of the lean times, Orbitz announced in November that it would cut its U.S. payroll by 10 percent in December.

More than half of the 1,000 consumers surveyed by comScore in October intended to change their travel plans this holiday season. Of those altering their plans, 39 percent said they would stay home.

Source: Phoenix Business Journal

 

Tags: comScore, Traffic, Travel Websites