Statistics revealed by leading ferry company Stena Line show that individuals are increasingly choosing to book…
Statistics revealed by leading ferry company Stena Line show that individuals are increasingly choosing to book their sea travel via the internet. Stena Line’s total number of internet bookings in September 2003 was around 8% of the total number of bookings made with the company. By July this year, the figure had risen to 18%, or more than double over the past two years.
“We have seen excellent progress and there are two reasons for this,” says Lars Olsson, who is in charge of Stena Line’s internet development. “The first is that over the past two years we have invested heavily in developing our internet booking dialogue and have made more products available online. The second is that more people are seeing the benefits of booking via the internet in general, partly due to reasons of access and simplicity.”
Internet maturity, or the willingness to book and pay for travel via the internet, differs across the countries where Stena Line operates. It has been common practice for quite some time in the UK, Ireland and Holland to use the internet for booking travel but it is only in the last six months that the number of online bookings has seen a dramatic rise in Scandinavia.
“Certain countries are way ahead of others in terms of the percentage of internet bookings,” Lars Olsson adds. “One example is Norway, where 25% of our bookings would be online and Holland, where it’s around 23%. Other markets are currently at around 15-20%, except Poland where the internet booking phenomena has yet to take hold properly. The internet is an important channel for us where sales and marketing are concerned, and we aim to continually increase the number of internet bookings we take.”
Stena Line continually carries out in-depth customer surveys about the user-friendliness of the different markets’ websites.
“It is important for us that our development is governed by customer requirements and the surveys are therefore very important. Stena Line aims to constantly increase the number of internet bookings and to provide good service and attractive products online,” concludes Lars.
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