The worldwide economic recession is forcing corporate travel managers to reevaluate business travel objectives and procedures, as well as existing vendor contracts, suggests a new survey by the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE), which reports a sharp decrease in business travel spending and a growing trend toward canceling internal meetings."The continued drop in U.S. consumer confidence has a profoundly negative effect on demand, which causes increases in layoffs and joblessness," ACTE Executive Director Susan Gurley explained in a statement. "Lack of demand causes a slump in manufacturing, which in turn creates a slowdown in global commerce. This has a massive trickledown effect on business travel. Among the hundreds of thousands of layoffs reported in the U.S. alone, there are literally thousands of business travelers now removed from business travel circulation."Results of ACTE's latest 2009 Business Travel Spend Survey show that 71 percent of respondents will spend less on travel in 2009, with 21 percent spending the same as they did last year and just 8 percent spending more. A previous poll, taken in September, showed a more optimistic take, as 33 percent of business travel managers said then that they planned to spend less in 2009 than they had in 2008, while 31 percent said they'd spend the same and 36 percent said they'd spend more.Hardest hit by reduced spending, according to ACTE, is internal meetings, as it observes that organizations are increasingly trying to save money by targeting non-revenue producing—that is, non-strategic—internal meetings, which can constitute up to 40 percent of a company's travel budget. An interest in virtual meetings is further driving the impact on travel for internal meetings, the survey shows, as interest in electronic travel alternatives among travel managers has jumped from 32 percent in 2008 to 50 percent in 2009.Finally, ACTE reports that 61 percent of travel managers are attempting mid-term to renegotiate contracts with travel vendors—83 percent are focusing on hotel vendors, 46 percent on airlines and 31 percent on rental car companies—in pursuit of savings goals that range from 10 percent to 20 percent, depending on market sector and volume.