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Some thoughts about the 2 main world markets - Europe and America - of online travel.

By 2006 the European online travel market – that nowadays amounts to about 5.5 thousand million Euro - will reach a total value of 38.7 thousand million Euro. This information comes from the Turismo B2B Conference, a trade fair for tourism that took place in Rimini (Italy). Data was obtained from Odopo, the leading European company in the field of online travel sales. The main European airlines are shareholders of Odopo, which has now started selling package offers. At the moment about 126 million European people are online (alone Germany and Great Britain make up 60%): Italy, with 19.4 million people online, is third. Furthermore, 26% of the European e-commerce is made up of pleasure travel. In January of the year 2001, 2 million and 600 thousand Germans purchased online travels (+ 85%). In Italy, however, this market has grown at a constant, yet gradual, rate. According to data the figure in 1998 amounted to 629 million Euro and grew to 1 thousand and 939 million Euro in 2001 whereas the volume of traditional travel sale amounted to 26 thousand and 715 million Euro. One in two travellers (52%) chooses the airline via the internet although those who claim to be satisfied are only a minority (28%). This is the result of a survey carried out by Passepartout of Eta Meta, the first to “observe” online tourism by analysing the online supply of the main airlines and by monitoring the most popular chat rooms, newsgroups as well as forums in the field of tourism. According to the survey, useful flight information (time, price, stops, route details) has to 31% of travellers while service assistance and advice (booking and payment procedure) have top priority to 24% of travellers. 20% is attracted by special offers while 15% is interested in winning prices and in playing interactive games. According to the survey what travellers really want though is to be reassured about the quality of the flight (48%), discounts (21%) and the airline’s responsibility when a flight is cancelled or luggage is lost (18%). Another aspect of this development regards the booking and the purchasing of train and ferry travels – however, this is a more nation-bound and less continental aspect, although it represents an important percentage both in terms of money and people involved.

Recently the number of Americans that turn up at the airport without a ticket has considerably increased. There has been an increase in the number of travellers who simply no longer need a ticket. One of these new travellers says: “When I have to travel I go online. I choose the destination, print the receipt and then, when I arrive at the airport, I check-through my luggage and board straightaway. It’s very easy, you do not have to deal with anyone, you can do everything electronically”. We call this new ticket e-ticket. You can buy it directly from the airline’s site either from home, the office or the airport. This way printing the boarding card is optional: what is important is to have your credit card with you when checking in. In the US, however, bookings via the net are not only an easy and fast way to travel, they are mostly also the most convenient ones. The lowest prices available on the market for mainly flights but also for hired cars, trains and all-inclusive packages can easily be found on the net in real time.