BLOGS could see consumers taking advantage of dynamic packaging to arrange and book trips for fellow bloggers in return for a ‘fixing’ fee.
With the number of blogs having boomed in the past three years to 35 million, a 60% rise, business analyst Euromonitor International believes a new breed of Internet-savy ‘minipreneurs‘ are set to take advantage of the $1.9 billion global dynamic packaging market.
Euromonitor International global travel and tourism research manager Caroline Bremner sees consumers moving from major websites towards a more personalised market and said established travel firms need to be more flexible and offer customers exactly what they demand.
“However, at Euromonitor we believe the ability of major players to offer increased levels of customisation and creativity is questionable as they merge into bigger, global corporations,” she said.
This customer-to-customer cottage industry could see traditional distribution channels being bypassed according to Fiona Jeffery, managing director of business travel and tourism exhibition World Travel Market, to which Euromonitor provides market intelligence.
“The web is such a gigantic influence in today’s marketplace and this idea has jumped from the US to Europe, where it has been on the rise for about 18 months. An exchange of views and information on the Internet could lead to somebody getting a payment,” she said.