Online bookings in the tourism industry will continue to increase. The demand for online virtual meetings will also increase at the expense of face to face conferences. The local markets will continue to gain momentum, as well as the low cost segment of the airline business. The destinations in the well developed tourist areas will not suffer much by the current crisis. Long distance travel will decline. The sharpest drop will most likely be experienced by conference travel. These are the forecasts for 2009 announced by the chairman of IPK International Rolf Freitag, at the ITB World Travel Trends conference in Berlin.

The analysis of IPK International is based on 500,000 interviews in 58 countries around the world. It indicates a drop in international tourism for 2009. 2010 will see no change from current levels. The years thereafter will record a slow rate of growth. “We are in a global economic crisis, not in a mild recession. The greed of consumerism from the last few years was transformed into consumer panic” explains Freitag. Judging from the data, slightly less than half of Europeans will alter their holiday plans due to the crisis. He believes that many will prefer domestic destinations, short-term travel, and cheaper destinations. Also, tourists will spend less when travelling.

The European and the North American market will be affected less compared to emerging markets such as India, China and Latin America. The emerging markets will keep growing, at smaller but still positive rates. Freitag notes that over 50 percent of the global tourism demand comes from Europe. A few countries even experience an increase in international travel. These include Russia, Poland and the Netherlands. This bodes well for Bulgaria hotel (??????) bookings since these three countries provide much of the tourism traffic to Bulgaria.  

Households with income below 20,000 euro do not plan many changes in their holiday plans. However, households with income less than 20,000 euro will reorient themselves toward cheaper destinations and holiday offers such as Bulgaria apartments. The analysis also shows that the use of Internet for arranging holidays continues to increase. The use is not limited to collecting information. Many international tourists use online booking. This tendency will continue in the future.