Not surprising, but….

Over 50% of Vacations Now Planned Online

it begs these questions:
– what kind of site does that planning process start?
– what happens on that site to move the traveler along the path from planning to booking?
– how many more sites need to be visited until the trip is booked?

My guess is that if the planning starts on a destination site – which is very likely based on destination name searches – most travelers will find a wide range of information, probably more than they need, but will in most cases not be able to book the entire trip on that site.

That, in opinion, is a lost opportunity for DMO to generate much needed revenue for themselves and for their local suppliers. With the right kind of combination of information content – of course, including the user generated kind – and booking functionality one stop shopping could become a reality. Compare this to today’s situation where all this stuff is somewhere on the web on many different sites and often requires hours of "work". Granted, researching, planning and dreaming about a future vacation is more fun than many other online activities, but the process should become much more interactive and integrated to raise it to the level of fun it could truly be.