Corporate travel adjusts to changes.

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Even as the effects of Sept. 11 and the 2001 recession slowly fade, the corporate traveler faces anything but smooth waters. A spring shake-up in the travel industry promises to change the old rules and make developing a travel plan even more important for businesses.

The North Carolina Business Travel Association -- a trade group of professional corporate travel managers and buyers, as well as sales and management professionals representing the airline, hotel, car rental, limousine, travel management and credit-card industries -- points out that even in last year's slowdown, travel was big business. In 2001, corporate NCBTA members spent more than $650 million on travel and entertainment, $300 million on airfare, $125 million on hotels, $25 million on car rentals and $40 million in annual business meeting expenses.

Still, it wasn't a normal year. Jim Hobbs, president of the Raleigh-based North Carolina Hotel and Motel Association, says business travel began its drop in the spring of 2001, as businesses began evaluating 2000. "We think we saw a significant reduction in business travel based on end-of-the-year earnings reports," Hobbs says.

And it just got worse after Sept. 11, when airlines canceled flights and people, even business executives, got the jitters about flying. In December, traffic at Raleigh-Durham International Airport was down 28.3% from the year before. It was down 19.4% at Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro and 5.5% at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport.

Jerry Orr, aviation director at Charlotte/Douglas, says much of the decline at his airport was business travel. He judges the amount of business travel by the use of the airport parking deck.

Things are turning around, Hobbs says, in the economy and in the public's willingness to fly, but both changes are proceeding slowly, and corporate travel continues to lag. "Certainly, there has been some return of the business traveler, but in the core markets of Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte and Winston-Salem! Greensboro, it remains down. There are some hotels out there that continue to do well, some who are not doing so well and some who have taken a big hit." It mostly depends on how close those hotels are to business generators and how those business were affected both by the recession and Sept. 11.

He pointed to hotel occupancy rates as proof. According to Hendersonville, Tenn.-based Smith Travel Research, 2001 statewide hotel occupancy was 54.2%, down 6.4% from 2000. And for the first two months of 2002, the rate was 47.1%, down 1.5% from 2001. For the 12-county Charlotte Regional Partnership, the decline is even more dramatic, which Hobbs says is further proof that business travel is recovering slowly. Charlotte is the state's leading business destination. For 2001, the region's hotel occupancy rate was 52.6%, down 1 0.5% from 2000. And for the first two months...