Online bookings being felt

Online bookings being felt

A report recently released in Australia shows travel agents will feel the heat of people booking online in the future.

Industry analyst IBIS World described the retail travel industry as one of the most highly competitive industries in the world, in fact they went as far as to say the outlook was "particularly poor".

House of Travel, New Zealand's largest privately owned travel brand said it had recognised early on the importance of the online channel.

"We launched our online booking website in 2004 and it was a world first at the time. It was a deliberate move by us to ensure we remained completely relevant to our customers."

Retail director for House of Travel, Brent Thomas confirmed there were a number of customers who loved the convenience of booking their travel on the web at night, when outlets were closed.

"We must be wherever the customer wants us to be so whether that is in store, on the phone, via text or online, we need to be able to meet our customers' needs."

And the move appears to be paying off.

House of Travel's online business has seen an increase of 154% in sales in the past 12 months with around 80% of their customers being new to the chain.

"As word spreads of our site, the fact it lists all the airline options in an unbiased way and you allocate yourself to an outlet in case you need assistance, the traffic and conversion rates have escalated.

We are not threatened by online or technology and we certainly believe the future of our bricks and mortar outlets is solid. We see online as adding to our proposition to the customer. We call it offering a multi-channelled approach – customers buying travel when and where they want."

Thomas said 20% of its annual transactions were currently done via houseoftravel.co.nz and predicted this would grow to 50% within five years.

The same report went on to say that the travel industry in Australia was facing "significant competition" for its share of household disposable income but Thomas strongly disagreed with this.

"What we are seeing is a phenomenal growth in Kiwis travelling. Over the past three years our sales have grown by 56% and while we know we are growing market share, our consultants are reporting customers travelling two and three times a year, as opposed to the standard annual trip overseas."

Thomas conceded being a stand alone, individually owned travel agency would be a vulnerable place to be given the current trends.

ENDS

The House of Travel Group has forecasted turnover in of $750m for 2007, it has 90 retail outlets (with specialist corporate, adventure and leisure and group travel outlets) throughout New Zealand, its own award winning aggregated booking website www.houseoftravel.co.nz and two wholesale companies (both inbound and outbound). It employs in excess of 1,100 people and is privately owned (by New Zealander Chris Paulsen) and operated since it was established in 1987.

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