Just in case anyone missed this.
Hotels, Cars Forecast to Add Online Bookings: Bloomberg Forum
Chicago, May 17 (Bloomberg) -- Hotels, rental-car companies, cruise lines and tour operators will increase their share of the travel booked over the Internet, an analyst said, as online bookings quadruple to $16.6 billion over the next four years.
Fiona Swerdlow, an analyst with Internet research firm Jupiter Communications LLC, said airline tickets will account for about 76 percent of the $4.2 billion in travel services she projects will be bought on the Internet this year.
The airlines' share will drop to 59 percent by 2003, she said, as consumers become more comfortable booking other travel services online, she said. Hilton Hotels Corp., car-rental agency Budget Group Inc. and cruise-line company Carnival Corp. are among the companies poised to benefit, she added.
''The Internet presents a lot of opportunity for (travel) suppliers,'' Swerdlow told the Bloomberg Forum. ''We're talking about tremendous growth.''
As consumers first began using the Internet to book travel, they looked at airline sites on the World Wide Web, Swerdlow said. Those consumers are now comfortable using the Internet to research fares and schedules.
''When you think about travel, the first thing that dominates the mind is, 'How do I get there?' '' Swerdlow said.
Now, as people become accustomed to the Internet, they're using it for other travel services.
Hotels, which are expected to bring in 15 percent of the online travel business this year, will take about 25 percent in 2003, according to Jupiter Communications.
Hilton, the third-largest U.S. hotel company, was among the first to develop an Internet site where rooms could be booked, and still has one of the easier-to-use sites, Jupiter said.
Rental-car bookings will grow to 12 percent of travel booked online by 2003 from 8 percent today, Jupiter projected. Budget has said it plans to let customers bid for rental-car rates on its site, much as Priceline.com Inc. lets users bid for low prices on airline tickets and hotel rooms on its Internet site.
Cruises and Tours
Cruises and tours last year constituted only 0.4 percent of the travel booked online. Cruise lines have been slow to use the Internet because travel agents, who sell most cruise vacations, don't want the companies to sell directly, Swerdlow said.
Now, following the lead of closely held Renaissance Cruises, Carnival Corp. and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. are both planning sites where customers can book their vacations, she said. Cruises and tour packages will account for about 4 percent of the travel booked online by 2003, Jupiter projects.
Jupiter presented its research on online travel bookings last week at its @Travel Forum in Chicago.
May/17/1999 11:40
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