For the first time senior executives and bloggers stare into their crystal balls to second-guess the events which will shape the industry over the course of the next 12 months

Now before you delve right in, be aware: this is a very long post! There’s some interesting perspectives to be read and a few clashing views (always fun!), but it’s a good insight none-the-less. To save you a bit of time we’ve picked out the six most relevant points for our specific audience…

From Graham Donoghue, Travelsupermarket

“Customers will be more promiscuous. Whereas they may have looked at four websites before making a decision on their holiday in 2008, they will be looking at probably at least eight in 2009.”

Good news for any sites not appearing on the first page of Google!

From Francesca Ecsery, Cheapflights UK

“People will be more prepared to shop around for a good deal. Price will play a vital role in securing consumers in 2009. As the world’s economic position continues to dominate the news, people will think smarter about where their money goes and will be prepared to take the time to find a good deal. Consumers are expected to cut back spending on items such as clothing, new home furnishings and cares, however recent reports show holidays are the one thing consumers will resist giving up in a recession.”

Bookings may come later, but they’ll still come. At least, we hope so.

From Neil Mason, Foviance:

“The seamless integration of Web 2.0 content to provide a richer customer experience will also be key in 2009. The multi-channel silos that create the barriers between web, mobile, call centre and high street physical store (for those that are still around!) will no longer be tolerated by consumers and organisations that fail to deliver a consistent customer experience will begin to suffer the consequences.”

Experience, experience, experience! Note that word.

From Steve Evans, lastminute.com

“Usability – people are going to start to recognise the massive ROI to be had from making your site and particularly your booking flow usable. Given the economic climate I think we’ll see less ‘ground-breaking’ new functionality and more improvement of what exists to make conversion easier for customers.”

Hmmm, yes – improving what’s there already. Certainly seems more valuable right now, than splashing out the big bucks on, I quote, “ground-breaking new functionality”.

From Mel Carson, Microsoft AdCenter

“More brands will be getting into social media, and I don’t just mean Facebook and Twitter, but understanding and valuing online feedback from blogs and forums and acting on it will pay dividends.”

We agree. Low-cost online interactive marketing will become crucial this year.

From Justin Cooke, Fortune Cookie

“User experience budgets will double as companies realise that experience is everything.”

Ah, there it is again; Experience. Want to know our predictions for travel industry in 2009?

Providing your customers with the best possible experience (online and offline), giving a ‘money well spent’ feeling, will be the a-factor in this year’s game.

the goal of Google’s travel division—aside from tapping into the $90+ billion global travel ad and sales market—is to give users a destination where they can research travel plans, read user reviews, and see user uploaded videos and photos. Already, about 50% of travelers use some sort of online social media site to research their plans, says Torres. Why not give them a one-stop shop for travel information? “We are already so highly searched for travel,”

This news adds to the speculation that Google are doing a lot of work around ‘vertical search’, and the travel market could be one of the first industries to see the effects.

There are also concerns from travel operators and marketers that Google could to use their strong position and large resources to quickly dominate the online travel market. However, it is unlikely that Google would want to enter the market for online bookings or sales due to the sheer scale of that undertaking.

So for operators and tour companies this could be good news, but for the myriad of hotel booking portals and cheap-flight brokers maybe not so good. Nevertheless, it is definitely worth keeping track of this development.

Most importantly for our industry, the most popular products/services bought online by European shoppers were travel tickets (54%) and holidays (42%).

With a huge 80% of European internet users claiming to have made a purchase online these figures make a pretty strong business case for investing in online marketing.

Another key finding of the report shows how web users are researching their purchases more. The EIAA report states:

40% of all European online shoppers have changed their mind about which brand to buy following research on the web, highlighting the power that websites can have in the purchasing decision.

Online shoppers from more mature online markets are more likely to change their mind on what brand to buy following web research, than online consumers from less developed markets. As markets develop in online sophistication, shoppers will consume a wider variety of marketing messages and information sources to make their purchase decision which increasingly influences their brand and product choice. As a result, marketers must develop ever more effective strategies to engage with their consumers.

To me the underlying message is if you’re not already looking at social media and ‘web 2.0’ for marketing your business then you really should begin to do so.

The executive summary of the report can be downloaded here or by visiting the EIAA web site.

(Via Multilingual Search)