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The Well Connected Family
9 April 2001

A recent study by ActiveMedia Research in the US shows that most small to medium, B2C e-commerce companies are operating in the black.   The research found that one third of all e-commerce firms are already profitable, with a prediction that 60% will be in the black within a year.

Good news indeed, but I wondered who might be doing all this online shopping, particularly travel?   I then realised that my own family might well be an interesting case study of online travel shopping.  

Not surprisingly, I take more than a passing interest in technology and so we are very well connected at home.   We have Sky satellite TV, video-on-demand via HomeChoice’s ADSL service, which also supplies a permanently-on connection to the Internet.   (ADSL is a very high speed TV/Internet connection that is delivered via your normal telephone line.   You can make and receive phone calls whilst being online.  No more shouting at the kids that they must stop surfing because you are expecting a call from Aunt Betty!)  

So what do we get up to in the privacy of our own home?   Well, I would not want to share every detail with you, but I can talk about our TV/Internet viewing and travel shopping habits.  

Convergence is a current buzzword, the coming together of TV and the Internet.   So have we converged?   Well, the kids still love watching cartoons on satellite TV, as all children do.   However, now they also really enjoy sitting in front of the PC, visiting Cartoon Network’s and Nickelodeon’s Web sites and playing games that feature their favourite TV characters.  

My other half never watches much TV and never uses the Internet for entertainment, only for research.   She has always left the travel booking arrangements to me and this has not changed.  

I have always been the family’s travel researcher and buyer, even in the days when I used to walk into a travel agent to collect an armful of brochures.   I buy all my business travel online.   However, when I am travelling en famille, if it is a package holiday we need, I telephone my travel agent as I always have done.   If our holiday is going to be independent travel, I will research destinations and hotels on the Internet and then, while I am at it, book direct (perhaps on the telephone).   I will book flights through the same online agent I use for business.   I will also book car rental online direct with a rental company or broker.

What is the moral of this family tale?   Even though we are well connected, our family’s travel buying habits have changed little.   The Internet has had the most effect and that is probably because I use it everyday for work.   Whilst the ActiveMedia Research study makes it clear that consumer markets are growing, “old habits, die hard” is a truism.   Do not expect consumers to rush to buy online as interactive TV and high speed Internet roll-out across the nation.   They will definitely get there in the end, eventually buying online in droves but, from my family’s experience, it will not happen overnight.

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