The marketing methods of travel agencies have changed over the last few years, with many more travel agents using social media as a marketing tool. The most popular platform used for marketing in 2016 was Facebook, followed by LinkedIn and Twitter. Despite improvements in the industry, a 2017 Statista survey found that only 16 percent of respondents who would like to take a spring vacation, would 'certainly' or 'probably' use a travel agency to book a trip.
Travel management, like many things, is becoming increasingly web-based. In 2016, digital travel sales in the United States amounted to 180.6 billion U.S. dollars. This figure was forecasted to exceed 213 billion U.S. dollars by 2020. Such is the success of the online travel market; that the largest travel agency worldwide is the online travel agency (OTA) Expedia, followed by another OTA: the Priceline group. These two OTAs were also some of the preferred agencies of U.S. travelers. A 2017 survey found that 41 percent of travelers stated they would book a trip with Expedia and 24 percent stated they would book with Priceline, ranking them first and third in the survey respectively.
