Czechs sidestep agencies book travel online |
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FORUM & ARTICLES
Czechs sidestep agencies book travel online |
2006-06-22 11:14:19 |
| autor: Cristina Muntean |
While the number of Czechs making travel arrangements online is increasing, according to industry insiders, some people have been making their own packages and sidestepping travel agency services.
This is pushing agencies to be more creative with their offers.
?From our evaluations, almost 70 percent of tourists use the Internet to plan their trips,? said Karin Šeligová, spokeswoman for the state agency CzechTourism. The most recent statistics, from 2004, show 38 percent of Czechs surfed the Web in search of travel and accommodation related services, according to the Czech Statistical Office (?SÚ). But the potential customer base for online services has grown rapidly since then, with 49.9 percent of Czechs going online in 2006, up from 26.4 percent in 2004, according to the Geneva-based International Telecommunications Union.
?The number of people [booking or making travel arrangements] through the Internet is rapidly increasing,? said Tomio Okamura, the spokesman of the Association of Tour Operators and Travel Agencies of the Czech Republic (A?CKA). Okamura added, however, that Czech clients are still more reluctant than their Western counterparts to book online, and usually go in person to agencies in hopes of making certain that their vacation arrangements go according to plan.
That reluctance is borne out by statistics. Growth in the use of the Internet to purchase travel services hasn?t been keeping up with growth in other areas of online purchasing. In 2003, travel services garnered 16.2 percent of the online market, by the first quarter of 2005 tourism?s share had slipped to 12 percent, with purchases of electronic goods, clothing and books showing significant market share increases.
Expanding horizons
Electronic commerce is generally seen as a good way for travel agencies to diversify their products and increase their profits. ?If you think about how many costs could be cut ? for renting space, [printing of] presentation leaflets and even the work force ? you realize how important the Internet became for travel agencies,? said Jaromír Beránek, the director of the tourism consultancy Mag Consulting.
Dan Plovajko, spokesman for the Cestovní kancelá? Fischer travel agency, said that relatively low penetration of the Internet ? still less than half the population ? and the language barriers still push people to the travel agencies. ?We estimate that Internet purchasing of traveling services hasn?t had such a great impact on the market for the moment," he said, but ?the trend [to book online] is here, and [popular] with the younger generation; travel agencies should take full advance of this opportunity.?
For other competitors on the market, the Internet appears rather as an inconvenience.
?If we speak about individuals [as opposed to groups], most of the people now make arrangements through the Internet and don?t need our services anymore,? said Jessie Hronešová, the managing director of Ing. Jessie Hronešová - CTC - Czech Travel Center, travel agency and congress organizer.
The director of Golem travel agency, Eva Košnarová, said that many people now book with agencies only when they need special guided visits or tickets that are more difficult to obtain individually. ?We estimated we lost between 25 and 30 percent of our previous profits or maybe more, in terms of individual vacations, not for groups,? she said.
As for the foreign tourists coming to the Czech Republic, in 2003, the last year for which figures are available, 71 percent arrived in the country individually, while only 20.3 percent arrived with a travel agency, according to statistics released by CzechTourism.
Established Czech tour operators and travel agencies are searching for ways to cope with this reality. A solution seems to be attracting clients to purchase offers electronically, but from the tourism agency.
?An agency can win clients by offering packages or individual services adapted to the specifics of the local public and then people will buy from the agency, not from the original supplier,? Fischer?s Plovajko said.
Other companies have employed different strategies.
?We focus more on companies, as we offer them consulting and give additional value to our services, as time is very important for companies,? said Hronešová of CTC-Czech Travel Center, adding that their new focus will be on travel packages including plane tickets, accommodation, car rentals and even visa arrangements.
Cestovní kancelá? Fischer belongs to the Karel Komárek group of companies, which includes Stanford, the publisher of this newspaper. |
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