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PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
DESPITE INCREASED SECURITY, TRAVELERS REMAIN WARY
Nearly 25 Percent Uncertain About Upcoming Travel Plans
WASHINGTON, D.C. - October 9, 2001 -- Even before
Sunday’s retaliatory strikes in Afghanistan, a quarter
of all travelers had cancelled, put on hold or remained uncertain
about their next planned trip. Lingering concern about security,
the threat of continued military action and the economic impact
related to the September 11 terrorist attacks were cited by
travelers who changed their plans, according to a comprehensive
nationwide survey of business and leisure travelers released
today by the Travel Business Roundtable (TBR).
The survey, conducted last week, found travelers remained
uneasy:
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One in five of those surveyed said they would discourage
close relatives or friends from traveling during the holidays.
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Thirty percent of travelers who changed travel routines
say it will take six months to a year to resume pre-attack
travel patterns. |
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One in four travelers said that new security measures
were insufficient to restore their confidence in travel
to the way it was before the September 11 attacks. |
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Seventy-nine percent say another terrorist attack in
the U.S. is likely. |
"Even before Sunday’s news and the threats of retaliation
against the U.S., there was a clear sense of unease permeating
the travel and tourism industry," said Jonathan Tisch,
chairman of TBR and chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels. "Fewer
people are traveling and they are spending less resulting
in hundreds of thousands of direct job losses, tens of millions
of dollars in lost tax receipts for local and state governments,
and billions of dollars in lost revenues for the industry."
Last week, the Travel Business Roundtable called on lawmakers
to take immediate action to help the travel and tourism industry
recover from the devastating economic fallout that followed
the events of September 11.
In a letter distributed to all members of Congress, Tisch
said that the terrorist attacks have crippled the industry
as public confidence in the safety of travel has been severely
undermined. "Hard data as well as anecdotal experience
suggest that meetings are being postponed, all but critical
corporate travel is being delayed, and individuals are canceling
or postponing personal travel plans within the U.S. and abroad,"
wrote Tisch. "These disturbing trends are all occurring
against the backdrop of an overall U.S. economy that is in
decline."
According to Tisch, lawmakers should not be lulled into a
false sense of security by the fact that some Americans are
restoring their travel habits. Most who are traveling now
are doing so with deeply discounted airfares and hotel room
rates-in most cases at 50 percent or more below the normal
fare or rate.
Among the TBR survey’s findings:
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The travel business rebound will be slow. Thirty
percent who have changed travel habits say it will take
from six months to one year to get back to the same level
of out-of-town travel that they did prior to September
11. |
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Holiday travel is likely to suffer. One in five
(20 percent) say they would discourage close family or
friends from traveling during the holidays, due to security
concerns. Nearly three in ten (29%) who had been planning
to fly over the Thanksgiving holiday have changed their
mind, preferring to stay at home or use ground transportation,
if available. |
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Recent actions taken by the government and airlines
to increase safety have failed to convince all travelers.
37 percent of those surveyed say it is the same or less
safe to fly now, compared to before September 11. Those
who say they’re traveling less now than before September
11 are more than twice as likely than the population as
a whole to say that flying is unsafe. |
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Increased security measures will still not get some
consumers traveling again. When asked if it were shown
that there were dramatically increased security measures
put in place to prevent security threats while traveling,
64 percent of the survey’s business travelers who
say they are traveling less than before the events of
September 11 said it would not cause them to restore travel
plans. |
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Most travelers do not plan to avoid New York City
or Washington, D.C. When asked if they would avoid
visits to New York City or Washington, D.C. for reasons
of personal safety, 71 percent and 70 percent of those
now traveling less than they did before September 11 said
"no" respectively. |
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Travelers expect another attack. 79 percent of
travelers think another terrorist attack is "likely"
in the foreseeable future. And while a majority (60 percent)
said it is more important, in the long run, to return
to a normal level of travel activity, that feeling is
shared by only 40 percent of those traveling less since
September 11, with 58 percent of them preferring to scale
back their activities. |
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The government and travel and tourism industry share
responsibility to restore consumer confidence. Respondents
were split nearly evenly when asked whose actions would
be more important to facilitate a return to more normal
travel and leisure activities. Forty-six percent indicated
the government, in its efforts to hunt down the remaining
perpetrators of the attacks, while 42 percent cited the
transportation and travel industries, in their efforts
to show that measures have been taken to ensure safety. |
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The travel industry’s response to the September
11 attacks receives high marks from consumers. Over
three-quarters (76 percent) of those surveyed indicated
that the travel industry responded with efforts to restore
the confidence of the traveling public "better than
expected." |
The TBR survey was conducted by Penn, Schoen, Berland and
Associates and Burson-Marsteller on October 2 and 3. The survey
had a sample size of 800 respondents (margin-of-error +/-
3.5%).
The sample was broken in two - 400 respondents fit the profile
of business travelers, 400 fit the profile of leisure travelers.
The survey will be updated regularly to track changing traveler
attitudes in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.
As the nation’s second largest employer, with a pre-September
11 workforce of more than 17 million people, travel and tourism
was the third largest U.S. retail industry, with $582 billion
in revenue in 2000. Travel and tourism has emerged as America’s
second largest services export, responsible for a $17 billion
trade surplus, and generated nearly $100 billion in federal,
state and local tax revenues last year.
However, Tisch noted that over the past three weeks, more
than 130,000 airline and aircraft-manufacturing employees
have lost their jobs. He added that the hotel industry has
also announced significant layoffs and has projected 2001
losses to be nearly $2 billion.
"The immediate effects the September 11 attacks had
on the travel and tourism industry are clear, but the continued
economic fallout is still being assessed and quantified at
the federal, state and local levels," said Tisch. "Executives
in the housing, retail or auto manufacturing industries would
be panicked by survey results showing this kind of consumer
reluctance."
The Travel Business Roundtable is a CEO-based organization
representing all sectors of the travel and tourism industry,
including major airlines, hotels and lodging, restaurants,
retail outlets, travel management companies, car rental companies,
financial services institutions and others. The roster of
members reflects the interdependence of all sectors of the
travel and tourism industry and demonstrates the need to work
collaboratively, especially during these challenging times.
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Editor’s Note: Additional survey data can be
found on TBR’s website at www.tbr.org
Media Contacts:
Matt Triaca - 202/530-4690
Jeffery Stewart - 212/521-2816
Debra Kelman - 212-794-DKPR (3577)
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