Beach Hotel BahaiDelSol

The travel industry has been completely changed by the revolutionary development of the internet. City breaks, luxury holidays, corporate travel, budget breaks… most of them are now booked online. In fact, 55% of holidays are now booked online and a further 17% are researched online and then booked on the phone. The time of the High Street Travel Agent is ending.

But why do so many of us choose to book luxury holidays online?

Convenience

Long gone are the days of having to spend an entire Saturday afternoon in a travel agency sifting through brochures and negotiating with an agent… before repeating the process at several others to ensure you really are getting the best price. You can do it all from home now from in front of the computer. You can visit the sites of several travel agents in minutes – or even use a comparison site to speed up the process!

Availability of Information

We can now view, from our own computers in our own living rooms, more information at our fingertips than a travel agent in a High Street travel agency could even just five years ago. Not only can we compare prices and hotels on agency sites, but we can find out about the local area and what’s going on there, look into the culture and read reviews about hotels and resorts from others who have already been there.

Value for Money

With price comparison sites, we can always make sure we are getting the best deal. Alternatively, we can sift through all the agencies for the best package offer or we can cut out the middle man completely and book directly with the airlines and the hotels. All of this adds up the ability of making sure we are getting the best prices on our holidays at all times.

It’s little wonder then, with those reasons alone, that the Internet has so quickly overtaken the High Street Travel Agent. And as more information becomes available online and Internet download speeds get faster, this is certain to increase online bookings even more.

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