Latest trend shows that U.S. online travel growth continues to sweep over the overall market, and this will continue until at least 2022.
Phocuswright, in their new travel research pointed out that annual gains are expected to remain steady in 2019, before declining slowly through 2022. By then, total gross bookings will have increased to $441 billion.
In the case of hotels there was a record-breaking performance in the first two quarters. Even though it showed a strong performance during the first six months, economic and travel results were more mixed in the second half of the year.
Travel executives fear an imminent economic slowdown due to unstable stock market and other political and trade scenarios. But for the time being, the travel industry is enjoying another year of solid gains.
Online travel agencies (OTAs) in European travel market have reached a remarkable place in 2018. But in certain segments online supplier-direct channel now steal the limelight from OTAs due to their success in developing and promoting their own online booking platforms.
Regardless of these challenges, OTA bookings continue to climb in Europe, for example in 2018, the supplier-OTA channel reached €47.9 billion. Modest growth is anticipated in future as OTA bookings grow at roughly half the pace of the supplier-direct channel.
OTA mobile bookings are projected to skyrocket. By 2022, more than a third of European supplier-OTA bookings will be transacted via mobile websites and apps.
Author: Manoj .S
Manoj works as Team Lead in Teknokraaft and looks into the Flights vertical primarily.