Online Travel Bookings Will Surpass Offline Bookings for the First Time in 2007.SHERMAN, Conn. SHERMAN, Conn. -- According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a new report from PhoCusWright Inc., next year for the first time transactions on the Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the will account for over half (54%) of all U.S. travel bookings. The report, PhoCusWright's U.S. Online Travel Overview, is now in its sixth edition and is used by members of the travel, tourism and hospitality industries to assess the domestic leisure/unmanaged business online travel market. It analyzes this market by segment, channel and major players, projecting trends through 2008. Suppliers (e.g., airlines, hotels and car rental agencies) have been outperforming online travel agencies (e.g., Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz and Priceline) since 2000, but growth rates Growth Rates The compounded annualized rate of growth of a company's revenues, earnings, dividends, or other figures. Notes: Remember, historically high growth rates don't always mean a high rate of growth looking into the future. for the two channels will converge con·verge v. con·verged, con·verg·ing, con·verg·es v.intr. 1. a. To tend toward or approach an intersecting point: lines that converge. b. by 2008. For years, suppliers have enjoyed an advantage over online travel agencies, due to their control over their own inventory and the relatively inexpensive task of acquiring online customers from their own offline channels. In fact, the pressure that travel suppliers put on intermediaries has at least partially spurred significant ownership changes among three of the largest players in the industry: the private equity buyouts first of Cendant (renamed TravelPort) and now of Sabre Holdings Sabre Holdings or Sabre, Inc. is an American travel technology company, encompassing several brands in three global travel distribution channels: travel agency, airline, and direct to consumer. These areas are serviced by TSG's three main business groups. , as well as TravelPort's purchase of Worldspan. But, the suppliers' online advantage is disappearing as the majority of travel transactions move to the Web. PhoCusWright's U.S. Online Travel Overview, the company's flagship domestic research report, is used by industry executives and other key decision makers in all segments of the travel, tourism and hospitality industries to make informed, strategic business decisions. Investment firms and industry analysts also use the report as the most authoritative guide to current and future travel industry trends. Other insights from PhoCusWright's U.S. Online Travel Overview include: * While the U.S. represented just one third of total online and offline travel bookings of the combined North America North America, third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. , Western Europe Western Europe The countries of western Europe, especially those that are allied with the United States and Canada in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (established 1949 and usually known as NATO). and Asia Pacific markets in 2005, the U.S. share of online bookings was over 60 percent of all online bookings. * Growth of dynamic packaging--the ability of consumers to easily combine airline, hotel, rental car and other product purchases online--is projected to slow significantly from 51 percent in 2005 to 18 percent in 2008. This trend is partly attributable to the current tight supply of bulk airfares and merchant hotel rates available for packages, thanks to higher load factors and occupancy as suppliers enjoyed strong sales during the recent robust economy. * Hotels will be the fastest growing segment online, surpassing air travel, which until 2006 had long been the fastest growing product segment. * The advanced level of the U.S. online travel market creates an atmosphere in which many innovations such as dynamic packaging, metasearch and user-generated content The production of content by the general public rather than by paid professionals and experts in the field. Mostly available on the Web via blogs and wikis, user-generated content refers to material such as the daily news, encyclopedias and other references, movie and product reviews as incubate incubate /in·cu·bate/ (in´ku-bat) 1. to subject to or to undergo incubation. 2. material that has undergone incubation. in·cu·bate v. 1. in the U.S. before expanding to other global markets. Many of these innovations include the new online capabilities that PhoCusWright has termed Travel 2.0--the travel industry's application of Web 2.0 practices empowering the online consumer. * The tipping point The point in time in which a technology, procedure, service or philosophy has reached critical mass and becomes mainstream. See network effect. See also tip and ring. of the travel market, with the online channel becoming the norm for travel purchases, is going to further shape consumer behavior that utilizes Travel 2.0 tools and applications. PhoCusWright's U.S. Online Travel Overview, Sixth Edition will be released the week of December 11 and is available, along with the company's other research and analysis reports, at www.store.phocuswright.com/reports.html. About PhoCusWright Inc. PhoCusWright Inc. is the nation's leading independent research firm covering the travel, tourism and hospitality industries. The company conducts and publishes primary research used in strategic planning Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. and forecasting. The pioneer in predicting the rise of online travel-related commerce, PhoCusWright continues to provide all segments of the travel industry's value chain with information for competitive decision-making. The company also produces a series of high-profile conferences for senior executives in the travel industry. More information can be found at www.phocuswright.com. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion