Stronger offline growth than online

GfK now measures online and agency sales.
Foto: iStockphoto

The Nuremberg-based consumer market research organisation has now integrated booking figures from 30 major online portals representing about 60% of online tour operator sales into its ‘tourism panel’. This panel, so far covering about 1,200 travel agencies, is the basis for its monthly representative survey of German tourism market trends. By adding online sales data, GfK is now able to give a comprehensive overview of ‘offline’ and ‘online’ booking trends.

In December, travel agents increased sales more strongly than online portals, GfK said. For the current winter season, agents have increased bookings by 12% compared to 7% growth for online portals. For the forthcoming summer season, agencies are showing a 16% increase in revenues while the online portals have 14% growth.

This trend is explained by the different ‘core businesses’ of travel agencies and online portals, GfK explained. Agencies have much higher bookings of cruise holidays, for example, and also of long-haul holidays while online portals focus more on ‘simple’ products such as flights and accommodation-only bookings.

However, bookings for major destinations such as Spain and Turkey are growing faster online than offline, GfK noted. Egypt even has a slight rise in online bookings while travel agency bookings for the destination are 27% down on last year.

Online portals have a clear focus on mainstream destinations, with Spain, Turkey and Greece accounting for 62% of their summer 2012 revenues by destination. The three countries’ share of travel agency bookings, in contrast, is significantly lower at 50%. There is a similar trend for winter bookings, with the top three destinations, the Canary Islands, Egypt and Turkey, accounting for 54% of online sales by destination but only 34% of travel agency bookings.

These figures appear to indicate German consumers are starting to book more mass-market destinations online than in the past. In contrast, long-haul destinations account for 36% of agency sales but only 24% of online sales. GfK said it planned to expand its coverage of online bookings in future by adding online sales of travel agents and tour operators.