The number of people traveling is expected to go down, but the cost of travel will go up, according to a report by Global Insight, a Massachusetts-based financial analysis and forecasting company.

Full-year 2008 domestic travel is now expected to reach only 1.987 billion trips, down 0.6 percent from 2007. Leisure travel, which makes up about 76 percent of total, will register 1.5 billion trips – a 0.5 percent increase over last year.

However, business travel is expected to decline 3.8 percent, which ”will, unfortunately, negate leisure's rather anemic gain,” according to the report.

"Consumers and businesses are being buffeted by the combination of economic uncertainty, declining profits and real wages, and rising travel costs," said Kenneth McGill, executive managing director of Travel & Tourism Services at Global Insight. "So much so, that they have finally begun to postpone, or reduce outright, their travel plans.”

The report suggests business travel will not begin to recover until the first half of 2010. And it will be 2011 before total domestic trips recover enough to reach 2006 levels.