2007-4-21: A new study by research group PhoCusWright has found the Europe´s travel market is increasing in online business.
The European travel market is following in the footsteps of the US travel market by conducting more business online, a new report revealed.
A new study by research group PhoCusWright reveals that the European online leisure/unmanaged business travel as a percentage of the total travel market will approach 25 percent in 2007, the level achieved in the US in 2004.
Yet the individual markets of Europe, in particular the top five - U.K., Germany, France, Spain and Italy - display the variety of paths online that developing e-commerce economies take, according to PhoCusWright´s European Online Travel Overview.
Following a country-by-country research effort covering these five markets and the European market as a whole, PhoCusWright found that cultural, technological, strategic and fiscal forces have shaped the online markets of each of these five largest European countries, and this new set of studies delves into the drivers and the likely effects of these forces. “For example, in Germany where Internet access is widespread and online purchasing is well established despite a relative aversion to credit card usage, travel purchase incidence is extremely low among both online buyers and frequent Internet users.
“Compare this to the UK, where access is also ubiquitous and online purchasing routine, but more than twice as many online buyers and regular Internet users buy travel than in Germany.
“Meanwhile, Italy and Spain share similar connectivity profiles, but a much higher proportion of regular users of the Internet in Spain purchase travel online than in Italy,” the research group said.
It added that such trends are reflected in the relative development of the local travel markets, but they are also indicative of the types and sizes of opportunities that remain to be exploited.
