DUBAI 27 April 2017: Conventional travel agencies are losing ground in favour of their online counterparts, with recent statistics showing that the use of internet in the Middle East is increasing by 15 per cent annually, the world’s highest growth rate, approaching the 150 million mark.
This came during panels sessions featured by the Digital Transformation Summit, held on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market 2017 in Dubai. Participants in the summit called for examining recent trends in tourists’ use of technology to discover, plan and provide non-traditional options that are likely to help agencies compete with digital-only peers.
Recent statistics have showed that traditional travel agencies have lost ground and a considerable share of their business as a result of the state of digital transformation witnessed in the tourism industry, with more than 50 per cent of them facing the threat of totally forfeiting their business over the coming five years in case they have failed to woo their clients through websites and social media forums.
By Angel Chan