Added: 02/08/2006 |
The worldwide online travel market is significantThe worldwide online travel market is significant and growing. Research groups detail growth figures in online travel market. United States online travel sales totaled $50 billion by the end of the last year. Online travel overview projects the online travel market to grow at an even a faster clip over the next two years. «In the United States», the report states, «this $190 billion industry will see more than half of its total business booked online by 2006».
By 2007, the United States online travel market both leisure and business is expected to represent nearly 40% of the total travel market. Indeed, well over half of all travel (leisure, unmanaged business and managed business) will be booked online by 2007. Eventually, online and offline travel growth rates will converge, but through 2007, online travel bookings will increase at nearly four times the rate of the total travel market. United States online travel market and online travel companies are facing their biggest challenges yet - increased competition, shrinking margins, and fears of market saturation.
What is next for United States online travel market and online travel companies? Will booming online usage and wide rollouts of broadband and wireless access drive continued gains? Alternatively, should United States online travel providers look beyond their borders for growth?
All Americans used to booking our trips on the internet. That is hardly new. However, here is something that is: increasingly, instead of using big online travel agents such as Expedia, Lastminute.com and Ebookers, confident web consumers are cutting out the middlemen and booking direct with airlines and hotels instead. People are going to online travel agents, finding the flight or hotel they want, and then going direct to the supplier to buy it in the hope of saving some money. The online travel market, which is gaining in popularity with consumers and has shed some government restrictions, faces tough times ahead and industry experts say it is a brand new playing field for distributors such as Expedia.
If you yearn for a late-summer getaway but your budget's more Toledo than Tahiti, take heart. You will find many Web sites that specialize in scoping out bargain-basement travel packages. The buzz? A new breed of travel site is making a big splash in the online travel market world. Sites such as Kayak and SideStep serve as comprehensive travel search engines. Unlike Expedia and Travelocity, for example, which search for available fares and rates in particular databases, these newer sites scour the entire Web for the best deals.
Probably, the most common complaint about online booking involves "fare jumping": fare increases that show up in midtransaction, after the customer thought the price was locked. Since agency sites aren't linked directly to the airlines' inventory systems, the fares they list may not be current. When you see a price you like, you select it on the site; but when the site contacts the airline or hotel to seal the deal, the price may already have gone up, and you get charged the new, higher rate. Online travel industry club may help you in booking and deciding where to go, for it offers various vacation searches, descriptions of accommodations at hotels and resorts at different destinations or airline tickets at the discounted rates.
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