TRAVEL technology consultancy Equinus is asking the industry for input into a survey it is carrying out among members of the public.
The consultancy will question a large number of UKconsumers face to face on the high street about their travel buying habits and their use of teletext, computers, Internet and faxes at home and at work.
Equinus partner Graham Harris said the purpose of the survey, which is carried out annually, is to inform the industry on the real size of the market opportunity for selling travel to customers through various forms of technology.
Equinus is asking travel companies to come up with any questions they would like to see included in the survey.
Last year’s survey showed that more than half of the UK’s consumers were quite happy with the idea of buying travel on the Internet and paying for it with a credit card.
Harris said: “This year we will be looking at digital TV which really did not exist last year.
“We are also looking at people’s experience of trying to book travel on-line and how easy or complicated that has been.”
He added: “Last year the main thrust was seeing how the travel agents on the street still fitted in. We wanted to assess how much business is bypassing the agents. We are still interested in that.
“The agency channel has been a very important one in this market. It’s not going to go away but we need to find out how big its share of the market will be with all these new distribution channels becoming available to the industry.”
The results of the survey will be published at the end of August. For more information, call 0800 8496302.