Last week we posted key highlights of PhoCusWright’s just released Travel Agency Distribution Landscape Report on our home page. Today, after a more in-depth review, we move on with selected insights and data that offer significant encouragement to all who have a stake in the upside of the agency channel.

(Please note that the Study does not cover the luxury travel market or luxury bookings. It does, however, provide a vital context for suppliers, agents, and  tourism authorities everywhere. I could not imagine any of us doubting  that the general health of the broader agency business has a big bearing on luxury distribution.)

• Traditional travel agencies ( excluding online travel agencies) accounted for almost $110 billion in gross travel sales in the U.S, or 40% of the $273 billion travel market in 2006. Travel agents’  total sales volume is expected to decline incrementally to $104 billion by 2009, when agents will account for 33% of all travel sales –with air being the major culprit. At the same time, the research suggests that the migration of online travelers away from traditional retail agencies has largely stopped, and may even have reversed itself, however slightly.  -PhoCus Wright Consumer Trends Report
• How many individual sellers of travel in the U.S.? See the chart below, while noting that the largest 65 mega-agencies account for a stunning 47% of all travel agency sales, which leaves another 23,000-plus agencies to carry the rest, resulting in a very fragmented mix of small, primarily leisure-focused agencies?
• “Facing significant upheaval in the industry, many in the agency community have responded strategically, tactically, and –most of all—aggressively to adapt, survive, and succeed” -Report editor Douglas Quinby
• While 72% of all agent sales are booked via GDSs, agents are increasingly booking more on the Web at the expense of the GDS.  Bookings by travel agents on a web site or electronic platform that does not involve one of the four major GDS companies will grow from 16% of all agency bookings in 2006 to 21% in 2009.

For more information about PhoCusWright’s Travel Agency Distribution Landscape: 2006-2009, or to purchase a copy, visit http://www.phocuswright.com/research_publications_buy_a_report/475 . You can also join a discussion with report author Douglas Quinby on the PhoCusWright blog.