Vacation squeeze: industry braces for a slowdown as low gas prices fail to trump the recession, but travelers can expect to find bargains and grateful hosts.

• Author: Kretschman, Bob
• Position: [FEATURE]

The 2-acre back lot of Adventure Bound River Expeditions is quiet and still in February's frosty air. Life jackets, camping equipment, outboard motors and inflatable rafts are stored away, and vans and buses used to transport customers to the river wait silently for warmer weather and peak flows.

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Tom Kleinschnitz, who owns Grand Junction-based Adventure Bound, is waiting, too, to see how many vacationers visit this part of Colorado in a year when the troubled national economy has almost everyone watching their dollars and cents more closely.

"I'm projecting to have a dip in sales this year," says Kleinschnitz. Who is also a member of the Colorado Tourism Board. "A lot of things are factors in how this turns out." The number of inquiries he is receiving about summer river trips is "good and steady,'' he says, but "it's all a guessing game. You put your product out there and see who wants to play."

It appears the number of people coming to play at Colorado's tourist attractions and resorts will be fewer than last year. Industry observers predict travel will be down this year, and trends that began in 2008 point to a significant slowdown. But even with the national economy in recession, people will continue to take vacations, and tourism businesses that provide travelers with value for the dollar will be rewarded.

"There's no doubt there will be a contraction in overall travel,'' says Clayton Reid, president and managing partner of MMG Worldwide, a travel-industry marketing agency that works for the Colorado Tourism Office.

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that real spending on travel and tourism fell by an annual rate of 8.1 percent in the third quarter of 2008, marking the largest drop since the fourth quarter of 2001. Reid says estimates indicate U.S. domestic travel this year will be down 1.4 percent from 2008 in the leisure market, down 2.5 percent in business travel, and down 3 percent in the group-travel market. He says the "luxury group" market--which includes high-dollar corporate getaways to exclusive resorts--will be one or the hardest-hit segments because of the recession.

"Corporations are very sensitive to their travel policies,'' Reid says.

Families and leisure travelers, however, likely will continue to take vacations, even though money is tighter this year.

'Travel is one of the last things people give up when they're squeezed," he says.

Even with the expected drop in travel nationwide, no one is sure how much Colorado--or specific destinations within the state--will be affected.

"In 2008, we had a very strong tourism year," says John Cohen, executive director of the Durango Area Tourism Office, "Looking into the future, it s hard to know.

The great unknown

"We've never seen a time like this before," says Mary Ann Mahoney, executive director of the Boulder Convention & Visitors Bureau. "Everybody's in a sit-and-wait mode right now."

A large part of Boulder's travel market is group business attracted by government aerospace and weather science labs, the University of Colorado, and the concentration of high-tech companies in the area. Mahoney says she...