Will online travel boom affect offline travel?
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Well as much as online travel guys might like to believe the online travel boom may not really create a dent in the offline travel’s market. According to this article offline travel agencies are not that concerned about the boom being seen in the online booking of tickets for travel.
Infact the most affected by the online travel booking boom has been the small time travel agents who book tickets. The reason why offline travel agencies would still continue to grow and prosper is the need for holiday planning and multiple location travelling which does require a one to one interaction with a travel agent prior to booking tickets.
According Travelguru.com founder and CEO Ashwin Damera said, “The travel pie is growing and there is space for everyone. We have diversified beyond bookings, and have developed a large hotel network across the country and are offering international holidays as well.”
According to Nandita da Cunha, manager, KPMG Advisory Services, “One still needs to interact with an agent for customised travel and complex itineraries,”.
One can also see the trend in online players going offline and looking to setup chain of offline customer service and booking centres inorder to reach to a larger audience and also there are cases of offline players looking at online presence.
It seems like a combination of the two with emphasis of online transactions would be the future. After all we still havent seen holiday planning tools, and user recommended travel destinations which make life of a traveller easier coming from the online players. Once we start seeing such interactive tools maybe then online travel sites would move beyond being just online booking engines.
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Offline One-to-One interaction makes traveler delighting experience of getting lots of information about the destination instead of online.
Its better to sell tickets via grocery shops because most people visit there and those shops are very near to the abode. Good Coverage