Dwayne Birtles, founder and CEO of SEAM, has drawn on his time leading marketing at both TripADeal and Flight Centre to write about a traveller segment that has always represented a major share of the market but is still underserved – the Independent Booker. According to Birtles this traveller is not new, but the tools and thinking to support them still lag behind.
For all the advancements in travel technology, there is one type of traveller who continues to be underserved – the Independent Booker – who now account for close to 20 per cent of Australia’s leisure travel spend, or approximately $11 billion annually.
These travellers build their own itineraries. They mix flights, hotels, land tours, regional flights and transport across multiple platforms. They are not avoiding the system. They are working around it.
What they lack is a single platform that understands them.
The travel industry has two streams
Most travel businesses operate with two main revenue engines. One is built on the power of the agent network. This includes in-person consultations, phone calls and virtual appointments. The other is their online booking channel, optimised for fast, low-touch transactions.
Both streams serve important customer needs. Both continue to deliver value.
Package holidays also remain a critical part of the ecosystem. I’ve seen that firsthand, having led marketing at both TripADeal and Flight Centre. These models deliver trust, value and convenience for travellers who want everything done for them. That segment is strong, and it’s not going anywhere.
There has always been a third group of travellers who sit in between. They don’t need hand-holding. They don’t want rigidity. They want control. And for too long, the tools available to them have fallen short. These travellers are not new, but they have been consistently underserved, despite their clear intent, significant spend and preference to build their own journeys.
Not a niche traveller
They now represent close to 20 percent of Australia’s leisure travel economy. That equates to approximately $11 billion a year in travel spend. Globally, this segment could be worth hundreds of billions. These travellers plan earlier, spend deliberately and build their holidays from the ground up.
They do not need guidance. They need functionality.
Yet most travel businesses treat them like edge cases. If you’ve ever tried to combine international flights, domestic routes, land-based touring, flexible accommodation and rail sectors into one seamless itinerary online, you’ll know how quickly it becomes difficult. Travel agents already do this well. They can pull together everything a customer wants across multiple formats and suppliers. The gap is that online tools have not yet evolved to offer that same level of flexibility and control in a self-service format. And that’s where the experience often breaks down for Independent Bookers.
And when it does, when the tools fail or the process breaks, this is where the travel agent becomes essential. Not as a default starting point, but as a trusted fallback when the booking experience becomes too fragmented, too slow or too difficult to finalise. That handover point should not be seen as a failure. It should be built into the ecosystem.
The challenge is not just mindset. The technical complexity is considerable. Integrating multiple providers, syncing live inventory, pricing dynamically across borders, currencies and categories, all while maintaining speed, reliability and trust, is incredibly hard. That is exactly why so few have nailed it. But that complexity cannot be an excuse to leave an $11 billion traveller segment underserved. The industry needs to start designing for how these travellers actually behave, with confidence, curiosity and clear expectations. And some are.
This piece has been shaped by thought-provoking conversations I’ve been having with leaders across the travel industry, including some of my current clients. There is real appetite for new thinking in this space, and real commercial potential.
