Forrester: - Making Leaders Successful Every Day

The number of US leisure travel Bookers — online travelers who use the Internet to both research and buy travel — fell 9% from 2005 to 2007. Fortunately, thanks to the overall growth of the online population and the increase in the number of trips that the remaining Bookers take, as well as the amount of money they spend on travel, online leisure travel spending has increased 41% in three years. What we're seeing is an early warning signal: Fix the problem, or else. To keep online consumers interested in online booking, travel companies need to overhaul their systems to sell the way people want to buy. They must proactively destroy — and then rebuild — their products to be more practical to sell online and humanize the digital experience that they offer on their Web sites.