Beemer: Retail, Travel to be Hit Hard this Summer

June 14, 2010  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in economic news on June 15, 2010 Retail stores and the travel industry will be hit hard this summer as consumers cut back on spending, just at a time when they seemed to start opening up their pocketbooks again, according to the findings of a survey conducted last month for the BeemerReport.com.

€œDiscretionary consumer spending will be in steep fall this summer as a majority of Americans re-think everything from back-to-school spending to vacation plans,€ said Britt Beemer, CEO of America's Research Group.

More than half of the American investors in the stock market, who were also pessimistic about the market€™s trend following the European credit crisis, expected to cut back on spending throughout the summer months. Of those with school age children, many said they may spend 25 percent less for back-to-school apparel if the market does not rebound quickly.   

€œDisappointing May sales figures are only the beginning of the trend to cutbacks in consumer spending,€ Beemer said. €œConsumer confidence levels are at historic lows, and that will even affect the amount of money consumers can devote to paying down record debt levels.€

In the survey, more than 60 percent of American investors in the stock market said they anticipated a drop in the market to 9,000.  Only 28.4 percent predicted that the market would bounce back quickly after the European credit crisis and eventually rise to a 12,000 point level. The pessimists called the trend.

Before the European credit crisis, only 43 percent of investors told the BeemerReport.com that they thought the stock market would fall to 10,000 or below; 57 percent said the market would continue to rise to 12,000.

The research consisted of 1,000 telephone interviews conducted Saturday through Tuesday, May 1 to 4, 2010, at America€™s Research Group (ARG)  headquarters in Charleston, S.C. The error factor is plus or minus 3.8 percent.