Emarketer, a research company, has recently posted 2 reviews on the path of online travel. In the first, They remark that: “A tighter market will exacerbate the fierce competition between online travel agencies and travel suppliers in an already commoditized market.” We believe that indications such as this one, showing that price is recognized by 62% of airline travelers as the most important factor in flight selection (ahead of schedule), show that market comodotization is already there.
In their second review, Emarketer reckon that the pace of online travel growth in US is slowing, and adds the remark that new generation travel tools such as travel search engines and travel communities, are improving the flow of information and make travel decisions by private customers ever more accurate and price sensitive.
Together with these two highlighted aspects, we see a third important indicator. The table 
on the right (click to enlarge) shows the change in travel distribution channel: away from online travel agencies – on to suppliers websites (airlines, hotels etc).
Our numbers for 2006 show an even faster growth: 59% of travel reservation were booked on suppliers sites in the US, and in EU- mostly thanks to low cost airlines – 64% of the reservations were made in suppliers websites.
As always, we will end with an open question:
If the customers understand that, the travel communities speak about it, and the figures prove it- when will travel search engines start doing the same?
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