While they like accessing online travel booking, many US business travelers later access offline travel services, according to a Travelport study, which said:
“The study finds that the greatest number of respondents use offline services to confirm that their online reservation was booked…demonstrating that there is still some mistrust towards the online booking system.”
About 32% of the respondents in the study use offline methods to update travel plans. Thirty percent of the respondents said online booking did not address their specific travel needs.
Noah Elkin, eMarketer senior analyst, said:
“As effective as online booking services have become in terms of sped, choice and pricing, there are still aspects of customer service – the so-called ‘soft factors’ of travel — where the internet has not yet been able to replicate the value added by traditional travel services.”
The study concluded that so far the main reason business travelers book online is for speed and the ease of service. Those factors were cited by 55% of respondents.
The study of 2,169 adult internet users was done by Harris Interactive for Travelport, a corporate travel management company.
Report by David Wilkening
