Leading Travel, U.S. Indices Slow But Grow

<B> Leading Travel, U.S. Indices Slow But Grow</B>

The Travel Business Roundtable Index of Leading Economic Indicators and the Conference Board's U.S. Index of Leading Economic Indicators continued to rise in March, both at half of the previous month's growth, with the TBR Index up 0.6 percent and the U.S. Index up 0.1 percent for the month.

Increases came from eight of the nine components of the TBR Index in February: total Airlines Reporting Corp. sales, Air Transport Association revenue passenger miles, Bureau of Economic Analysis' personal consumption expenditures for travel and other discretionary products, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' measure of travel industry employment, the Conference Board's consumer confidence index, Dept. of Commerce and Bureau of Census data on retail sales at eating and drinking establishments, Smith Travel Research's hotel/motel revenue index and the daily rental car price index provided by a top provider.

Smith's data provided both the strongest increase in March, the 4.2 rise in the hotel/motel revenue index, and the only decline, the softening of the hotel/motel occupancy rate.

Dr. James Howell, president of the Howell Group, which generates the monthly TBR Index, predicted that, sustained by the travel industry, real gross domestic product which was 3.9 in 1997 and 1998 will be 3.8 in 1999, 2.4 in 2000 and 3.1 in 2001.