Non-Line Blogging

The digital winds of change have blown most cruelly through the offices of travel agents in the past decade.  The sad truth is that we do not need to wander down into a busy high street and watch somebody dressed up as an air steward using a computer to type in our preferred holiday details...we can do that at home (the searching, not the dressing up as air stewards). So the travel industry has become a barometer for what conditions will hit other business sectors, and here's an interesting development...

In TravelMole today it was announced that the two biggest brochure publishers "are being forced to merge because of the dramatic fall in the number of brochure packs and high street travel agents".  In the face of adversity Paul Markland, MD of the publisher BP said “Let’s be upbeat – travel agents and brochures are a valuable part of the holiday sales chain and will be for a long time to come.”  Well, yes and no...

In some decisions you may need old media to help you, and holidays is probably one of those.  So lets say that we are excited about a camping holiday but need to sit down with the family and agree where to go.  Sounds like a job for the Eurocamp web site to me.

In a couple of clicks we can choose what bits of the brochure to download and after parting with an email address we have a personalised PDF brochure.  Not only that, Eurocamp have my contact details and can link that to the preferences I selected from the brochure page.  We win - we have a brochure to help us choose where to go.  They win - qualified lead that can be chased by email.

So the man from BP was right, and brochures are going to be part of the holiday sales chain for many years to come.  But it won't involve going into a travel agent, or getting a thick paper brochure, or bringing home hundreds of pages you'll never ever to look at...which is why his demand for brochures has dropped from 12 million to 7 million in 5 years along with a 25% decline in Travel Agents