TravelMole Interview: Stacey Keating, consultant, PhoCusWright.

Travel packagers, take notice: Consumers are most concerned about price, but coming in second is convenience. “That’s not just to save time, but they also want a single source for accountability. Say they have a problem on their trip. They want to go to one person to fix it,” Stacey Keating, a consultant, told TravelMole.com Ms Keating was behind a recent PhoCusWright and Vividence study that found consumers are increasingly open to buying vacation packages on line. But they are often frustrated with the lack of flexibility, said Ms Keating of the exhaustive study, which is believed to be a first of its kind. Among other findings, the study revealed that while only 28% of consumers have bought online in the past, another 68% said they wanted to do so. Among Ms Keating’s recommendations for packagers is to specifically cite its benefits. “Travelocity is putting on its home page that consumers save $155 if they book both their flight and their hotel. That kind of assurance helps tell consumers they are getting the best price, which is a major concern,” she said. She also urges as much flexibility as possible in putting together packages. “People have a fear of being locked into a property or a flight that won’t work for them. A package might suggest a flight time, but maybe a consumer wants a different time,” she said. One area of particular frustration for travelers, she said, is when they fly into a city and then do a driving trip. That complicates matters for consumers when they look for car rentals and hotels at different locations, she said. The study found that a majority of travelers or 56% already use the internet to research purchase travel services. One in three of the 1500 respondents in the survey visited the Web more than 10 times to plan their last vacation. Sixty percent of respondents said they were planning a domestic US vacation. The top US destinations were Florida, California and Las Vegas. Report by David Wilkening