With competition getting stronger, 2009 promises to be as challenging a year as 2008, says Peter Yesawich, president of Ypartnership, the leading US travel and entertainment marketing firm. Yesawich says that there continues to be “plenty of demand” but marketers will have to be aggressive and clever to capture this. For 2009, Yesawich says that value is king and consumers will demand more for what they pay and will shop for the good deal. He says research shows that both vacations and business trips will get shorter, as travelers and companies seek to get a grip on costs. Interestingly, he forecasts that consumers will use the Internet differently, and will do more comparison shopping. At the same time, more travelers are resorting to new cell phone technologies. The good news is that vacations are increasingly being perceived as an appropriate way to recognize life events (anniversaries, school graduations, retirement, etc), and these are planned further in advanced, and include more people. Ypartnership research also shows that travel agent usage will continue to rise as American travelers resort to expertise on finding the best options/prices (value). The trend to favor environmentally conscious travel properties continues.