Offline travel market shrinking, but at a slower pace

Travel sales through brick-and-mortar agencies will continue to decline in the coming years, but at a slower rate than previously experienced, according to PhocusWright

As a market approaches 40% online penetration, online sales growth tends to slow and the shift from offline to online becomes less rapid, according to Phocuswright analyst Chetan Kapoor.

Key takeaways

• The corporate sector is a major contributor to this slowdown in online growth due to the complexity of their policies, which are difficult to adapt to online platforms;
• The corporate travel market is still largely served by offline travel management companies, and Phocuswright has not seen a significant shift to online platforms in this segment. This is one reason why online penetration in this market may not accelerate as quickly as in others;
• However, the effectiveness of the increasingly popular hybrid model, where agencies combine both offline and online distribution channels, has yet to be fully determined.

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