When I visited World Travel Market at the end of last year, along with the usual tour operator detritus, I picked up a copy of Travolution, the new on-and offline magazine from the publishers of Travel Weekly.
It is a handy read for anyone interested in the online travel business though their blog, which got off to a promising start seems to have stuttered over the last couple of weeks.
This evening I read a piece by Simon Powell called “Online growth driven by people power” in which he is enthusiastic about the state of online travel.
No shock there. I first met Simon in the late 90′s when Comtec was just a two, maybe three, man band polling late deals from the UK’s top 20 tour operators and packaging them to sell through third party sites. His service was just what we needed (at that time) for Expedia UK and a deal was done.
Now Comtec is the leading supplier of online travel distribution services in the UK.
The quote I particularly wanted to preserve, as much for my own records as anything, resulted from a recent research by Amadeus (who now own 20% of Comtec). Simon says:
Travel companies now compete in a marketplace where the online channel is the most important information source for consumers when planning and booking trips for pleasure. More than double the number of consumers browse for information and advice on travel agent and tourism sites compared with those who contact an agent (59% compared to 24% for their last leisure trip).
Nothing new there. Just another nail in the coffin of the offline travel agent.
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