By 2012 the European online travel market is expected to have a value of more than €91 billion, growing at a CAGR of 11.4% 2008-2012, according to a recent research from EyeforTravel's soon-to-be-released European Online Travel Report.

All online European travel markets under review showed an increase in online sales figures, whereas offline figures for the UK, France, the Nordic region, Middle Europe, and Southern Europe have decreased. Although offline figures for Germany increased until 2008, they are predicted to decrease substantially in the years to come.

However, as per the findings of the first eTravel Benchmark survey in May 2009 and various EyeforTravel studies, the online travel industry as a whole has some way to go in order to compete with ‘best in breed' companies for website engagement and customer service.

Online travel sites need to work harder at improving the entire end to end website experience if they are to build trusted, long-term relationships that encourage customers to buy from them time and time again, according to the eTravel Benchmark study.

As Vicky Brock, Highland Business Research says ‘It shouldn't be this difficult. […] what we have found is that compared to a straight e-commerce business this [usability, analytics and conversion] has been technically far harder to achieve for the tourism businesses.'

The reasons for these levels of under achievement are multiple and Vicky Brock will be speaking about them at EyeforTravel's Travel Technology Summit at World Travel Market 11-12 November on the session ‘Usability – Fine tune your booking path for maximum conversion'.

In an interview earlier this year, Cameron Jones, Director of Business Development EMEA, Expedia highlighted ‘Small tweaks in marketing messages/copy and relevance of placements can have enormous upside for driving incremental transactions. There is a critical list of key placements that we at the Expedia Affiliate Network know will drive conversion the minute they are implemented so we look for these when we first audit a new partner's site."

Brock and Jones will be joined by Eleonora Lamanna, Web Analyst & Online Functionality Manager, Hertz Europe to share best practices in usability for travel sites. Throughout the 2 day summit speakers from KLM, Octopus Travel, TripAdvisor, TUI, Tripology. Lufthansa and more will present their views on the latest developments in e-commerce.

As 2010 looks set to show flat growth in the global travel industry overall, it's vital the travel industry gets the basics right to achieve optimum conversion from those travellers who are looking to book. In these times, failing to perform well is more than just a missed opportunity, it's potentially commercial suicide.

For more information about EyeforTravel's European Online Travel Report contact tim@eyefortravel.com or visit www.eyefortravelresearch.com/reportsales

For more information regarding EyeforTravel's Travel Technology Summit contact gina@eyefortravel.com or visit http://events.eyefortravel.com/wtm/travel-technology-and-marketing