Total U.S. travel spending down, lodging disproportionately so | hotelnewsnow.com

Recently, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released its estimates of travel-and-tourism-related spending for the first quarter of 2009. In 2000 inflation controlled dollars, total spending on travel and tourism declined by an annualized rate of 5.9 percent relative to the previous quarter. This quarter-to-quarter drop of total spending occurred despite a 10.9-percent decline in the overall price of tourism goods and services.