Tomorrow’s travel trends revealed by US expert

If the Middle East follows the example of the US travel market, travel agents can expect consumers to focus more on their family's needs and be armed with increased market information.

Speaking at the Vacation Ownership Investment Conference in Dubai last month, Peter Yesawich, chairman of international marketing and PR firm, YPBR said trends from the North Amercian market would slowly take hold in the region - but would take effect at a much quicker rate.

"In 1996 11% of homes in the United States had access to the Internet, now it is 80%," he said.

"The trend we have observed in the USA in the past 10 years will cascade across the world in the next ten years. In Saudi Arabia today, 11% have access to the internet. You could argue that maybe it will take another 10 years, but there is accelerated development here [in the Middle East]."

Yesawich said consumers had become "empowered by technology to ensure they do not pay exorbitant prices".

"The message got out: if you want a great deal or an offer, you go online. Value is king. The last thing people want to do is wake up and find the customer in the room next to them paid $100 less a night."

According to YPBR's research, 56% of active travellers in the US rely on the internet alone to make their bookings, while 28% use a combination of travel agents and the internet. Yesawich also noted that the events of September 11 had made travellers more family focused.

"We began to think about what was really important in our lives, and it was not what we thought during the 1990s," he said.

The way people were planning their holidays was also changing, according to Yesawich, with more travellers planning more vacations of shorter durations. There was also a growing demand for leisure over business travel, he added.

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