A May 2nd news story released by PR News and copyrighted by Individual.com states that " Switchboard.com (http://www.switchboard.com) recently surveyed hundreds of online families" and found that 31% use the Internet to "research and book vacation destinations themselves". A table at the end of the article shows the following information:
"How families book vacations: Booked themselves: 50% . 31% (via Internet or 800 ##), Travel Agent 22%
Most important factor considered: Climate 20% Cost 20% SOURCE Switchboard.com"

It is supposed here that the 31% who used the internet and 'booked themselves' did not use a travel agent.

When considering factors that determine where to spend their vacation, for "22% of the vote, climate and cost play the most important roles in families deciding where to go on vacation, even more significant than entertainment, crime rates, sightseeing abilities, and nightlife. "

Were the respondents to this survey a representative sample of any definable universe of travelers, or were they the ones who 'opted in' when they saw an on-line invitation to take the survey? If it is the latter, the percentages just quoted may not represent any larger population than that which tends to 'opt in' when they see invitations to take travel surveys online.

This is not an attack on Switchboard.com. It is to raise a rather general issue about online surveys. How can the survey taker know the universe to which the results can be generalized when the respondents are only those who chose to accept an online invitation to 'take the survey'? Putting the issue another way, how can the survey-taker go about finding how different are these people from the ones who tend to ignore such invitations? Indeed, might the 'ignorers of the invitation' be a much larger group than the 'acceptors of the invitation'?

These questions come to mind when we read another recent story about a Bear Stearns analysis and projection of the business climate for travel agencies. In an April 17 article copyrighted and prepared by Bridge News it is stated that " Seeing great potential for the Internet to change the travel industry, Bear Stearns senior managing director and leisure analyst Jason Ader said that 25% of all travel agents will eventually be out of their present jobs as the travel industry embraces the Internet."

How is such a prediction to be supported properly?

It seems to me that some surveying of travelers' behaviour should form part of the basis for the prediction. An April 18th article prepared by Newsbytes, says that Reuters has reported on the Bear Stearns work as a "survey".

Has Bear Stearns been tracking random samples of travelers over time, so as to sense how their use of travel agents is shifting as use of the internet grows?

One piece of the Bear Stearns analysis seems consistent with what has been reported above concerning the Switchboard.com survey. The Bridge News story states as follows: " 'If I were a travel agent, I would be very worried right now. There is no doubt there is tremendous growth potential in Internet travel,' said Ader. As customers turn to the Internet to make their travel plans, the role of the travel agent will diminish, he added. The handwriting is on the wall, where commission fees have dwindled to the point that, in the first half of 1999, about 1,800 travel agencies went under, due in part to their inability to generate revenue. Travel agents can only survive by filling distinct niches, like luxury or adventure travel, and they must focus on customer service. "

The growth potential cited in the Bear Stearns article can be imagined from the figures in the report from the Switchboard.com survey. Some 69% of the online respondents did NOT say they used the internet to gather information about destinations and make bookings. Then there is the large class of people who are traveling but do not fall into the universe of those who are 'online'.

Thus of the entire traveling universe far below 31% could be using the internet for travel-related decision-support research, even if the figures from Switchboard.com are validly generalizable to the universe of online travelers.

Indeed, notice that in the segment of the table from the Switchboard.com article cited above the 31% has "internet or 800#" written beside it. That suggests that we should have a clarificaton as to how much of that 31% is really comprised of internet users, or, alternatively, of people who only used an 800-number.

Suppose that today some 20% or less of travelers are relying upon the internet to research destinations and make bookings -- i.e. cut back the 31% cited above by 11 points to reflect the possible impact of a very large group of travelers that are not 'online' at all. The remaining 80% should constitute a gigantic market into which agents can successfully tap; and so the fact that agents' commission revenues are declining may have relatively little to do with the growth of internet usage by travelers.

Indeed, this idea is suggested by the Newsbytyes article of April 18th. It says that " A Reuters report said the survey, by Bear Stearns, suggests that despite an apparent glut of online travel agents, more are expected to appear - and sites that have enjoyed a brisk trade through offering discount airfares may soon be bumped by the airlines themselves who are developing the means to distribute cheap tickets via the Web. Another threat will come from partnerships between airline and hotel operators who are uniting to offer travel packages online, the report said."

Morever, it is easy to see how some enterprising agents can capitalize upon the internet to dramatically enrich the services they offer to clients. This could be an important idea; because the thought that people would tend to put down thousands of dollars to travel to and risk their safety in some far-away place without substantial contact with real people concerning factors that touch upon the wisdom of that decision strains credibility, I think. It is arguable that the internet will force travel agents to change how they work, and not necessarily reduce their potential to profit from being in the business. A substantial proportion of travel agencies probably fails every year (especially if this is an industry with a high rate of new entries annually), and for reasons having little to do with the internet per se.

There may not be any practical way to answer correctly the foregoing questions concerning how to get demonstrably valid survey data about travel behaviour. If this is so, a variety of sources of information need to be merged in trying to get at the real picture on peoples' travel behaviour.

One possibly useful source is a sort of 'correspondent panel' -- a group that provides information about theirs, and their families' and friends' travel activities regularly, and which is chosen so that different kinds of people are represented within the group (though almost certainly non-randomly). This group could be regarded as a sort of Travel Focus Group whose reactions to important and well-known travel-related events can provide key insights into shifts in the business climate for different parts of the travel and tourism industry. Arawak Net is in the process of forming a Travel Focus Group of people interested in the Caribbean as a set of tourist destinations. Join the group and be eligible to win the sweepstakes draw for a free week at a Caribbean villa (send email to lestone@arawak.net . The sweepstake draw will be held on August 31 (in time for planning of winter holidays), provided Arawak Net has a minimum of 100 entries by then. If not, the draw will be postponed until there are 100 entries. Sweepstake rules and other related 'legal stuff' will be posted at this web site soon.

Credits for sources for this article are due to Individual.com news service (www.individual.com). A serious effort has been made here to respect peoples' copyrights. Any lingering violation will be corrected promptly, as soon as someone points out where the violation takes place. Contact me at lestone@arawak.net.

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