Travel Tops Internet Sales

 Editorial by Patrick Totty

Travelers’ Huge Online Spending
Is a Power They’ll Soon Learn to Use

Sometimes the news that a revolution has been won comes in some small datum rather than in a loud announcement.  A recent article on TWcrossroads.com (www.twcrossroads.com), an online news provider that serves the travel industry, said that consumers spent $19.4 billion last year on U.S. Internet travel sites.

That fact alone amazes when you consider that online sales of everything, including travel, was only $200 million in 1996. But the real heads up was the further information that that $19.4 billion accounted for 36% of all the money consumers spent online at U.S. retail sites last year.

When nearly two out of every five dollars being spent online go for travel, you know two things have happened: 1.) The Internet has firmly arrived as a preferred means of travel planning, primarily because 2.) issues of security, speed and range of offerings have been resolved to consumers’ satisfaction.

Now, to make the Internet an even more rewarding and productive experience for travel consumers, a third thing has to happen: Travel sites have to move away from the “company store” concept and become truly open, free marketplaces. Think of the difference between a mall that carries the same old cookie-cutter franchise stores and an exciting shopping area like Fifth Avenue or San Francisco’s Union Square – the sophisticated shopper will jump at the chance to visit a place where there is a genuine,  often surprising, range of choices.

It will take awhile to reach this point. Because the Internet is relatively new, many corporations are imposing a screwy set of restrictions and expectations on it. One of them is pretending to offer a broad range of choices (that generic mall again) when what they’re really offering is a narrow set of options disguised 15 different ways.

There’s nothing wrong with an Orbitz or a Travelocity selling a limited set of choices and publishing them online as a sort of giant electronic bus schedule. It’s the pretense that they are offering something more that will eventually grate on consumers.

When consumers do come to that realization, they'll begin seeking travel portal sites that combine the quantities offered by sites like Orbitz and Travelocity with the substance offered by sites like Cultural Travels and Luxury Link to offer genuinely broad choice.

The point is that those $19.4 billion represent a huge amount of clout. Like the Kevin Costner character in “Field of Dreams,” the airlines and mega travel agencies bet that if they “build it (online sites), they (travelers) will come.” Now if only they’d build some comfortable seating, play more than two opponents on the schedule and offer a decent hotdog….. 

Nineteen billion dollars at the gate says they’re going to have to.