By Bob Meyer

Travel was the hot item this past holiday season. Nearly 83% of travel agents received requests for gift certificates or travel packages as gifts this year, according to the American Society of Travel Agents.

It’s indicative of a population that is traveling more and favors small weekend getaways. In fact nearly 41 million Americans plan to hit the highways and airways this winter.

In the past five years, the number of trips taken by Americans has grown 20%, even as their average stay gets shorter, according to the Travel Industry Association of America.

Travel gifts can be as small as a transfer of frequent-flier miles or a $25 certificate toward travel or a hotel. More generous gift-givers often use a prepaid package offering a weekend at a hotel for a couple of hundred dollars.

The travel demands reported by the travel agents wasn’t a surprise to barter companies. Increasingly travel has become an important component in a barter company’s many services. And the ability to provide an extensive array of travel continues to expand as the barter industry grows.

Barter companies (trade exchanges) are now networking with one another more and more to provide their clients with some terrific travel options. Consult with your barter broker for the latest and ever-changing inventories.

For a list of USA barter companies, see right-hand column, “Top Resources.”

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 8:37 am and is filed under Entrepreneurs & Small Business, Media & Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.