LAS VEGAS – The CEO of the largest online
travel company is confident that traditional travel advisors will continue to
thrive.
Responding to a question from a reporter at the company's Explore
19 conference on Thursday, Expedia Group CEO Mark Okerstrom said, "I think that traditional travel agents have carved out a great place for
themselves. There's still a need for agents in complex travel -- the complex
trips that are multi-legged that include many different stops. Things like
cruise."
Expedia research shows that two-thirds of their customs
would prefer to communicate with agents via chat or text rather than voice when
they have questions. But Okerstrom said that such results aren't reflective of
more involved itineraries.
Expedia owns ExpediaCruiseShipCenters, and Okerstrom noted
that the travel agency franchise has about 300 locations staffed by some 7,000
agents -- infrastructure that is necessary since a cruise can be a more complex
purchase than a simple hotel-air trip.
"I think what we've seen in the industry is the simple stuff
has gone online, and when we look at our customers who are texting with us, a
lot of it is very simple requests," Okerstrom said. Such requests often deal
with making a booking, changing a booking or canceling one.
The complex trip -- the 10-day, multi-country itinerary with
scheduled activities -- is tough for a traveler to do online.
"That's still a great place for offline travel agents," Okerstrom
said.
Expedia Group, which ranked first on Travel Weekly's 2019
Power List, had sales of $99 billion in 2019. It owns several large OTAs,
including Expedia, Travelocity, Hotels.com, Orbitz and Hotwire.