2015: Travelers still prefer booking with online travel agencies
Source: http://www.hotelreservationssystem.com/online-travel-agency.html
Online travel market is expected to have an 8% annual growth during 2015. Sales through online travel agency are predicted to reach $30.3 billion by 2015.The rising sales of mobile devices will hold more than 20% of online travel product bookings. OTAs’ distinguished advantage in leveraging the mobile channel will boost the OTA growth through 2015. Responsive web design and travel apps have also become important for travel business to represent their service online and either to make the website compatible for optimum viewing through various devices or through travel apps.
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Travel Agent Software for Online travel agency
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People are often subjected to intolerable travails by big travel booking players. The booking experience and the package offered will be excellent, but the actual travelling experience may not conform to the promises made. There may be unending delays at the airport and when you reach the hotel you booked two months ago has no information about your arrival. People now turn to their own travel agents.
The online travel agents offer you options that you would never find in single booking site. With his experience, he can make you reach your destination with less time and money. Media now reveals, travel agents are coming back.
If you ponder over the reasons for this ‘return of the travel agent,’ you’ll find it in the leading travel booking sites which really confuses with a plethora of information. There are lots of restrictions and fees too, which the traveler will come to know only later, or sometimes never. Some popular airlines, in these big sites, are conspicuous by their absence. With their Big Data-generated assumptions, they often show the visitors the travel products which do not interest them. A real travel agent can give you better options. He certainly has a website of his own, equipped with an online booking engine. But he can give you personalized service and is easily reachable.
Many people nowadays contact a travel agent for booking flights because the decrease in flight capacity by the airlines has resulted in considerably more full flights on the routes. Giant booking sites are poor in offering seat choices and at seating co-travelers together. Family members or lovers cannot often sit together. Travel agent’s small travel website can arrange all this for you.
Since the travel agent wants to capture your loyalty and money, he will always try to provide a service that is better, faster and more affordable than a big travel site can offer you. You can also call him by phone if necessary, while you are traveling.
Small- and medium-sized online travel agencies are preferable when you plan to explore an unfamiliar place or have a complicated trip with many people involved.
People think it will be less costly to buy travel products from giant travel booking players, but often it is not so. Agents will be knowing promotional offers and often have access to exclusive deals. He can make your travel hassle-free and enjoyable.
Besides guidance on bookings, a travel agent can direct you on such issues as travel insurance, crowds, best time to visit, crime-prone areas, travel visas, vaccinations, and trip cancellation details and restrictions.
As online travel market is expected to have an 8% annual growth during 2015. The rising sales of mobile devices will hold more than 20% of online travel product bookings. This will also help to increase bookings online. OTAs’ distinguished advantage in leveraging the mobile channel will boost the OTA growth through 2015. In 2015, online travel agencies will be more focusing on segments like hotels and holidays. OTAs have aggressively focused on hotels to provide a higher share of their revenues as the commission from selling flights has declined, and they have tried to attract consumers by reducing the cost of booking as much as possible. Hotel operators are worried about losing control over inventory and pricing to OTAs. Whereas Chain Hotels have a fair percentage of reservations made from OTAs and their website, the bookings for Independent Hotels through OTAs are higher than the ones made through their website. Online travel agencies will continue to make profits in hotel booking sector in 2015 too.
Global travel sales is expected to reach US$830 billion in 2017. Online travel agencies look forward to the emerging travel markets in China, India and Brazil. North America is still the leader in online travel market but growth is showing a downward trend. In all significant geographical areas, online travel reservations shift to mobile. Mobile travel purchases has already passed US$25 billion. Mobile devices are used for transactions such as one-night hotel reservation or emergency car rentals. Online travel booking sector has become one of the most mature ecommerce markets.
Western Europe along with North America, Italy and Spain have online travel sales growing at an average rate of 15% per annum. In Britain, half of all traveleres have given up on traditional travel agents and are booking their holidays entirely online. Travellers all over the world usually prefer travel agents for expensive travel arrangements whereas booking online for cheaper packages.
Asia-Pacific leads in growing online travel market in the world. It is predicted that Online travel sales in this region will reach $126.6 billion in 2015. In Asia-Pacific region,Japan is leading the online travel reservations. China is behind Japan but its growth is phenomenal. Fast-developing India shows a 24.8% of growth in online travel bookings. Due to the rise of the middle class, smartphones and tablets are being sold like hotcakes in Asia-Pacific. Internet connectivity is improving. Consequently, online travel bookings are expected to break records in 2015.
By 2015, 25% of all travel sales in the U.S. will be through mobile devices and it will fetch $US40 billion in revenue. In Europe mobile will capture 20% of bookings by 2015. The majority of consumers regard the Internet to be important for travel research and planning and also inspiring for new travel.
Travel websites and portals use social media and content to drive more consumers to the platform. Most platforms are used to motivate and encourage consumers to book travel products. Blogs are used to guide the consumer, add value, and position the brand as an always reliable one. Other Contents include city guides, guided tours, promotional videos, 3-D images and so on. online travel agencies also ask the visitors to connect with Facebook and Twitter and this strategy is very effective in extending the customer base.
What we see at the beginning of 2015 is online travel agencies (OTAs) are becoming more popular, as travel “lookers” seek out one-stop shops to compare different brands, flights, hotels, packages and prices.
Which is the top GDS, travel APIs for airline reservation system?
Flight suppliers are the resources which can offer their customers wide range of flight inventories with both GDS and external connections as well as real-time availability on more than 500 + Airlines. Some of the flight suppliers which provides best in class solution for various flight based travel portal are: Amadeus, Travelport, Sabre, Abacus, Expedia, Travelocity, Mystifly, Travelfusion, TBO, Arzoo etc.
Regarding Author:
Author is a travel technology expert and has been involved in several online reservation system development projects.
