A year ago, Balboa Travel thought it had a pretty good market niche with about three dozen dot-coms as corporate customers. Today, it has about 15. Balboa Travel is not just suffering from economic turbulence but an economic shakeout as well. A lot of companies seem to be pulling back today, cutting out unnecessary travel and waiting to see what the economy is going to do.
Airlines say their business travel market is shrinking fast.
Hotels are reporting a softening market for corporate events and say they expect that to last until fall. And travel agencies and meeting planners say they see definite signs that companies are watching their travel budgets a little more closely these days. I think June, July and August are going to be tough months. There is absolutely a softening in the group meeting business, but the questions are how deep will that be and how long will it last. Mansur said he is not concerned with leisure travel, association meetings or convention groups.