The Travel Market Goes Digital

Stelios Haji-Ioannou, owner and founder of EasyGroup, a group that gathers fifteen low-cost agencies like EasyJet, said last week the travel market is not out in the streets as many people think, but on the world wide web. As an instance, Mr. Haji-Ioannou explained that 97 percent of his sales are made on the Internet.

Addressing attendants to the Fifth Summit of the World Travel & Tourism Council in India, Mr. Haji-Ioannou pointed out that Google, acting as a go-between, has turned out to be the world´s biggest travel agency.

From the group´s different companies, only EasyJet is currently on the stock market, even though Mr. Haji-Ioannou doesn´t rule out that both EasyHotel.com and EasyCruises -a couple of firms dealing with low-cost hotels and cruises, respectively- will be on the market five years from now.

EasyHotel.com will open its first low-cost hotel in London next June and negotiations are underway to open a similar franchise in the Spanish city of Barcelona.

As far as EasyCruises is concerned, this company has announced the first low-cost cruise liner will sail away on May 6 with passengers from 42 nations that will shell out 75 to 140 euros per night for a cabin.

The Greek entrepreneur stressed traditional airlines are supposed to merge with the world´s three big carriers -Lufthansa, Air France and British Airways- in the near future. In his opinion, The British megabuck airline will eventually gobble up Spain´s Iberia.