The main trend running through the panel discussion on “The Cutting Edge of Distribution” on Day Three of CHIC 2005 was that on-line booking is here to stay. ﾠCindy Estis Green, Managing Partner of The Estis Group said the annual rate of growth for on-line booking through 2006 is estimated at 26 percent. The Hotel Industry is also the fastest growing side of distribution.
“The percentage of online versus offline continue to grow every year and this isn’t going to be changing for the next few years. “This will continue at this rate, different parts of the world are running at different levels, different percentage at online/offline but one thing that is in common all over the world is that online is growing quickly,” said Estis Green.
It is estimated that 64 million travelers/64 million households will buy travel on-line this year. Some $64 billion will be spent on on-line travel in 2005 and will increase to $110 billion by 2009. ﾠFrom a hotel point-of-view, leisure travelers, using online bookings spent 2.8 times a year in hotels.
Estis Green noted that the use of travel search engines is running at 63 percent for leisure and 40 percent for business. She also estimated that almost half of all travel companies received close to one in five of their revenue dollars through search engines.
“Which means that 20 percent of revenues for almost half of the travel companies comes because somebody used one of the search engines,” said Estis Green. ﾠIn the last 20 years, GDS booking grew 10 times in 20 years, compared to Internet bookings which in five years multiplied by 15 times.
“So the rate of growth is tremendous and the impact it is having on the industry is even more tremendous,” said Estis.
Caribbean Hotel Association
