Arabian Travel News takes a close look at the online travel sector in the Middle East and reveals how web bookings are set for an explosion over the next few years.

The online travel sector might not have taken off just yet in the region, but ask anyone in the industry and it seems we could be about to leap into an internet travel booking boom.

While there appears to be no official data to confirm exactly how many people currently use the internet to book travel online in the Middle East, a few hard facts are clear.

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The region has one of the fastest growing internet populations in the world, the highest number of smart phone users and a growing number of Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) are jumping into the market.

Sunil D’souza, country manager UAE & Oman, Kanoo Travel explains: “The Middle East has one of the fastest growing internet populations in the world. E-commerce could be worth in the region of US$30-90 billion, depending on your source of information, and the sector will grow very significantly in the future.

“At Kanoo, we represent several major airlines and we know from them that a growing proportion of transactions are happening online. This is a clear indication that the market is changing and consumers are seeking to book their travel online.”

According to Walter Lo Faro, director of market management, Middle East & Indian Ocean for Expedia, the number of travel bookings made online in the Middle East is set to “more than double” over the next five years.

Lo Faro estimates that around 20 – 25% of travel transactions in the region currently take place online, but he says the market is showing an “impressive speed of growth” as both travel suppliers and travel agents rush to cater to a growing demand from consumers to book travel online.

“The Middle East is slightly slower on this development but it’s getting there,” says Lo Faro. “Especially I would say in the past 24 months, the number of Middle Eastern users actually making bookings online has been growing exponentially.”

Expedia launched an Arabic version of its Hotels.com website two years. Lo Faro explains that while the site is “doing well” the “basic difference between an Arabic website and a European one is that you get a great deal of shoppers on the site, but the conversion is much lower, so there are many ‘lookers’ but not as many ‘bookers’.”

He admits that this indicates there is still some caution among the Middle East consumer about booking travel over the web, but says things are changing rapidly.

“Yes, people are still slightly reluctant to pay for things by credit card online. But people are getting more and more web savvy. They use internet sites a lot — Facebook etc. They are used to the tool itself but they are not particularly used to the transactional side of it, so between the viewers and the shoppers it’s not the same relation you would find in the UK for instance.”

He believes consumers will catch up quickly. “I think in the Middle East progress happens really fast. When I first came here, internet penetration was about 11% but now it’s nearly 60%. And that’s in just five years.”