Is travel up or down?

So which is it: the travel industry is beginning to recover from the recession, or prices will continue to circle the bowl for the next 12 months?

Attendees at the U.S. Tour Operators Association annual meeting in Banff, Canada, this week are saying the future looks brighter. In fact, the past wasn’t so awful, as we haven’t seen a single USTOA tour operator go our of business in 2009, the association’s president announced. The secret, of course, was slashing prices to the bone in a survival move, and then having the business resolution to cancel unfilled tours. Seventy-five percent of survey respondents of a USTOA member survey in November predicted prices will be lower next year than in 2009 by an average of 5 percent, according to Travel Weekly.

And yet, 20 percent of member operators surveyed said that business had already turned a corner. Nearly 70% predicted a turnaround in 2010; of those, more than 30% saw business picking up in the first quarter, nearly 25% predicted a second-quarter pickup and more than 10% said the turnaround would not occur until the third quarter. Only 15 percent don’t see a recovery in 2010.

Meanwhile, Travelocity is putting out press releases showing its most recent data for hotel rooms booked over a holiday (December 20, 2009 to January 3, 2010) shows average daily rates have been falling as the popular vacation period nears. A week-by-week analysis shows that over a 14 week period ending November 28, overall ADR has dropped from $181 per night to $150 per night. The good news for the lodging industry: international hotel rates are rising for the holidays.

Over at rival Hotwire, the 2010 predictions say that hotel prices will continue to drop, especially in larger cities like Las VEgas, Miami a, Los Angeles and San Francisco, where rooms are already 55 percent off. Prices will stablize f0r the airlines, thanks to capacity cuts, but they’re not rising any time soon. Car rental prices, however, will be through the roof.

For the first time since CLIA started publishing stats, the number of ships setting sail from US ports fell year on year. In 2004, US embarkations accounted for 77% of all cruises. In 2008, that had fallen to 69%, says Travel Weekly.

Rooms for sale?

PhocusWright didn’t predict good things for the travel agent sector in 2008, even before the recession woes hit. Still, John Pittman of ASTA believes 2010 will be a year of recovery, with many agencies saying they expect to rebound by spring or summer. (Corporate travel, other members say, will lag until 2011.) How did Travel Agent’s editor sum up his state-of-the-industry interview with ASTA officials this week? “Despite the loss of 1,400 agency locations and real challenges to be faced in 2010, travel agents who provide value to suppliers by creating demand for travel and provide valued services to consumers, the future looks good.”

Well, that’s not especially definitive — go-getters and hard-core salespeople will always be able to make a success of the impossible. So the question isn’t whether individuals can make it but whether the service itself has a fighting chance.

Photography: Julie Sturgeon