1997 Winter ACTE Quarterly: President's Message | 1997 Pricing Outlook | Long-Awaited Travel Index

The Travel Business Roundtable, an ad hoc committee of more than 60 CEOs and other senior executives of major travel supplier companies, is in the process of putting together the first-ever monthly travel indicator of the same type and function as other leading economic indicators, such as the consumer price index.

The travel index project, a year in the making, will result in an instrument that clearly shows the impact of travel and tourism on the U.S. economy--in terms of consumer spending, tax revenues, and job creation. The index also will be a way to predict general trends in the economy 6-9 months in advance. The intention is that the instrument will become as widely used as other major economic indices, including consumer confidence and purchasing agent activity.

The index is being created by Jim Howell, president of the Howell Group, a Boston-based economics consultancy. Howell, a former chief economist for the Bank of Boston, has been analyzing travel data dating back 20 years. "We began collecting data from the growth period of the early 80s through the 1990-1991 recession, to see how this industry behaved--for instance, how sensitive to recession and recovery it is," Howell told ACTE Quarterly. The data have been provided by the Air Transport Association, Smith Travel Research, the Conference Board, Airlines Reporting Corporation, Avis and American Express.

The index will also have restaurant spending as a component, "to include that part of T&E; spending," Howell said. Including restaurant spend is particularly important, he added, because the restaurant industry is the single largest employer in private sector. "Policy makers use manufacturing as their unit of analysis," Howell said. "overlooking the extremely important, and growing, travel sector. Its influence on the overall economy underscores the importance of this index, which we hope will bring much more attention to travel industry concerns by lawmakers in this country."

Creating the monthly indicator is only one of the goals of the Travel Business Roundtable. Another is to influence public policy. The Roundtable chair, Jonathan Tisch, Chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels, has been meeting with legislators to discuss TBR's goals of creating a combination public/private entity that will promote travel to the US, and the restoration of full tax deductibility for business meals.

1997 Winter ACTE Quarterly: President's Message | 1997 Pricing Outlook | Long-Awaited Travel Index