Jeffrey Grau, Senior Analyst of eMarketer
Jeffrey Grau: US online consumer travel sales to reach $94 billion in 2007
A tighter market will exacerbate the fierce competition between online travel agencies and travel suppliers. To succeed in the brave new world of online travel,” says Jeffrey Grau, senior analyst and author of the report `US Online Travel: The Threat of Commoditization’. “Industry players must be willing to reinvent themselves to keep up with consumer, technology and competitive forces.”Jeffrey Grau: How Consumers Use Online for Travel
Searching, researching, planning and buying, an eMarketer senior analyst looks at the behavioral patterns of online travelers. For many consumers, travel planning is not just a means to an end, but an enjoyable activity in its own right. The intangible nature of travel makes it well suited for online research. PhoCusWright claims three-fifths of online travel shoppers cite search engines as resources to research their vacations.
Jeffrey Grau: Online Travel Sales to Boom
eMarketer reports that by 2010 roughly 46 percent of total travel sales will be booked online, second only to computer hardware/software in the B2C category.
The online travel market is divided into two segments: leisure/unmanaged business travel and managed business travel (also known as corporate travel). The online booking behavior of unmanaged business travelers is indistinguishable from leisure travelers. Employees of the millions of small- and medium-sized corporations in the U.S. use the same websites as leisure travelers to book their business travel. Thus these two groups of buyers are treated as one customer segment.
Jeffrey Grau: Global Trends to Impact European Online
The European Online Travel report examines economic, business, technology and consumer megatrends and their implications for the travel industry in general, and the European online travel sector specifically. A number of major global trends will affect European tourism over the next five years, having a profound impact on the online travel sector. Already, eMarketer estimates that online travel sales in the five major travel markets of Europe–France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK–will total nearly $49 billion this year, up 27% over 2006.
Jeffrey Grau: eMarketer: $146 Billion in Online Travel Sales by 2010
A tighter market will exacerbate the fierce competition between online travel agencies and travel suppliers, according Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the report "US Online Travel: The Threat of Commoditization."
Jeffrey Grau: Online travel planning popularity varies
eMarketer Senior Analyst Jeffrey Grau says, "Internet-savvy consumers are exploiting powerful resources to find information about travel products and pricing. They like businesses to come to them, not the other way around, with the right product, at the right time, in the right way. This challenges travel providers to transition from a service model based on mass consumption to one centered on creating customized packages for groups of travelers with unique interests and needs.