What’s the future of online travel agents?

September 01, 2010 |

As one of the seminars in the 'TRAVELtech: New Kind of Normal" media conference held in Sydney on Tuesday 31 August, a panel of three travel and hospitality experts discussed the future of online travel agents.

OTAs need to position themselves in the value chain, said CEO of TravelTainment - Amadeus Leisure, Andy Owen-Jones. The three aspects of this positioning are: (1) understanding their customer proposition; (2) knowing their intrinsic capabilities and (3) monitoring their environment.

The fourth criterion, not yet tapped by OTAs, was the 'Inspirational' sphere which inspired a site's visitors to want to travel. Instead, OTAs currently play a reactive role, having prospective clients referred to them by gateways such as Google, Apple or Amazon, he said.

Mr Owen-Jones hypothesised that the dominance of these gateways would lead to a growth in travel packaging, a larger role for recommendations, and increased segmentation.

"But the core competency that every OTA will need to realise over the next five years is data management," he said.

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