TRAVEL agents will survive the growth in Internet bookings if they have better access to inventory and information than consumers can access, FSS marketing director Ian Champness told the conference.
He said a poll by NPD Research showed that 13% of US agents said the Internet was the most common reason for losing a customer, but that 30% of customers said they still preferred to book with their agents.
“One of the main reasons is the limitation of the sites in consistency of data,” he said.
Despite this, agents had to rethink the way they did business, Champness warned.
He said National Opinion Poll statistics showed 12.69m UK adults accessed the Internet at least once in the 12 months to June 1999.