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Topaz Studies
Booking Business Travel via the Internet
For the past eight years Topaz International has done comparison reviews of booking business travel on public internet websites versus booking via traditional travel agencies. "Year after year, the results are similar, which might indicate nothing is really changing" suggested Bradley J Seitz, President and CEO of Topaz International "however value to companies and their travel management firms year after year is to better understand how their managed travel programs are performing and what opportunities exist for improvement.""Even while agency airfares are higher only 8.44% of the times, for every $10 million of air spend, this represents lost savings of over $100,000 each year. Not only does this add up very quickly, it provides great opportunity for improvement to your travel program by eliminating this leakage."
| Agency Fare Equal or Lower | Agency Fare Higher | Average Agency Fare | Average Internet Fare | Difference | |
| 2001 | 93.26% | 6.74% | $458 | $629 | $171 |
| 2002 | 91.13% | 8.87% | $594 | $748 | $154 |
| 2003 | 91.02% | 8.98% | $503 | $572 | $69 |
| 2004 | 93.57% | 6.43% | $478 | $558 | $80 |
| 2005 | 93.29% | 6.71% | $427 | $483 | $56 |
| 2006 | 94.03% | 5.97% | $508 | $583 | $75 |
| 2007 | 94.85% | 5.15% | $442 | $498 | $56 |
| 2008 | 91.56% | 8.44% | $497 | $558 | $61 |
"The challenge during difficult economic times is to ensure their travelers are spending precious resources wisely, and airfare is one of the highest expenditures in many corporations."
Topaz International will continue to conduct these independent studies where we compare data between traditional booking sources and various internet sources, giving corporations the ability to measure the performance of their travel program against alternative distribution channels.
