With the travel industry in the midst of its worst downturn in years, two of Lawrence’s largest and oldest travel agencies are joining forces.

Ruth Hughes, owner of Lawrence-based Holiday Travel Inc., said Monday she is closing the business after 20 years in operation. Hughes and two of her company’s four employees will join Travellers Inc. of Lawrence later this month.

Hughes said she had considered retiring from the business for the past five years. She decided it was time for change after watching the 9-11 terrorist attacks and the slowdown in the economy take a toll on the industry. She declined to offer specifics but said the number of airline tickets sold by her agency had dropped about 25 percent in the past year.

“This absolutely is the toughest business has been in the 20 years I’ve been at it,” Hughes said. “We could stay and survive this, but it isn’t the fun that it used to be. When you work this hard, you want to be rewarded.”

Hughes and two agents, Pame Griffith and Megan Richardson, will join Travellers at its offices at 831 Mass. By Oct. 21, Holiday Travel will close its offices at 2112 W. 25th St.

Hughes said she was pleased to work out a deal with Travellers because she did not want to leave her company’s approximately 6,000 customers looking for a new travel agent.

“I didn’t want to leave all of our clients in the lurch,” Hughes said. “They have been faithful to me for 20 years, and I wanted to be faithful to them. We think it really will be a seamless transition. We’re not stopping anything. We’re just changing our location.”

Kent Houk, vice president of sales for Travellers, said the deal would position the company well for the future. He said Holiday Travel was regarded as one of the top Lawrence agencies dealing with leisure travel, which will complement Travellers’ strong corporate and group travel sales.

“We’re very optimistic about the future,” Houk said of the 10-employee company, which was founded more than 50 years ago as Maupintour Travel Service. “We feel like once the economy picks back up, we’ll be in a better position than we’ve ever been in.”

Hughes said deals like the one between Holiday Travel and Travellers are becoming common in the industry. She said industry figures showed the number of travel agencies in the United States has dropped from about 32,000 at the beginning of 2000 to about 17,000 today.

The slowing economy and the terrorist attacks hurt agencies, but Hughes also blamed airline carriers for the problems. In the late 1990s, carriers began eliminating commissions they paid to agencies. Those traditionally had been 10 percent of the ticket price.

The industry’s problems have taken their toll on Lawrence. At least two other travel agencies have closed in the last two years, Hughes said. But she remains upbeat about prospects for the industry.

“The problems aren’t insurmountable,” Hughes said.

“There always will be a place for us because people still love to take a trip  but not everyone loves planning one.”