Winter Trips

Posts Tagged ‘Online Travel’

Internet is now considered as a commodity instead of luxury what it was a decade ago and it has also been considered as the new mantra for tech savvy generation in India. According to Travel mart India, The fastest growing category for B2C e-commerce in India is Travel. From railways to airlines, hotels to travel packages- virtually every segment of the travel industry is seeing a surge in online bookings. With the global increase in popularity for Online Travel, Online Travel sales worldwide increased by as much as 34% from 2004 to 2005 and reached $62 billion in the US markets and $31.1 billion in the European markets.

Online travel in Asia too, is on a roll, estimated to reach $16 billion by 2006 more than double that in 2003. Of the 38.5 million people logged-on in India, the Travel industry accounts for over 23% of internet shopping in India, which translates into a whopping 4.8 million Indian users who venture for the Online Travel. The travel industry is cashing on this growth with dedicated e-commerce portals that enable customers to make online bookings and payments for hotel rooms, air tickets, car rentals as well as holiday packages.

Preeti Desai, president, IAMAI says, “With leisure travel on the rise, so is the need for hotel rooms. As per our estimates Rs 29 lacs (US$66000) worth of Hotel Stays were sold online in 2004-05 and Rs 2.36 crores (US$537,000) worth will be sold in 2005-06. This is increasing because companies of all sizes have realized that for no implementation charge they can begin using an online travel program that drives down the company’s travel management costs and overall travel spending.