The $11 Billion Opportunity: Why underserved travellers will reshape the future of travel

This piece builds on an article I originally wrote for Travel Weekly. It’s been updated with new insights, including how consumer demand is shifting and why a model I call “programmatic travel with human override” will be critical to unlocking the next phase of growth.

For all the advancements in travel technology, there is one type of traveller who continues to be underserved. They are not searching for the cheapest deal. They are not waiting for a call from a travel agent. They are doing it themselves, with clarity, confidence and intent.

This is the Independent Booker. They are the real face of FIT, or Fully Independent Travel, and they now account for close to 20 percent of Australia’s leisure travel spend. That represents 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.

What’s changed since I first published this

Since this piece was first published, the industry conversation around independent travellers has accelerated and so has the evidence that they’re not just a valuable audience, but an underserved one.

I’ve heard directly from travellers who say they’d gladly pay for a service that brings together the best of self-directed planning with the ease and support of expert input.

That’s a powerful signal, because it shows the demand side of this equation is just as strong as the supply gap.

This isn’t about creating a new audience. It’s about better serving one that already exists and doing so in a way that reflects how people want to plan and book travel today.

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.

The Independent Booker is 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.

Emotion has always shaped how travel is planned

Travel has never been purely transactional. Emotion has always driven where people go, how long they stay and how they want to feel when they get there. What’s changed is how much that emotion now defines the entire planning experience.

Recent research from The Growth Distillery’s, Dan Krigstein shows that three out of four Australians say they enjoy the planning phase just as much as the trip itself. Travel is no longer just a break from life. For many, it is a core emotional priority, a way to feel more in control, more connected and more fulfilled.

The Independent Booker is responding to that energy. But most travel businesses are still only speaking about destinations, discounts and dates.

Google’s recent travel research supports this shift. Travellers are starting their planning earlier, making more open-ended searches and showing greater demand for flexibility, inspiration and control. Multi-stop, mix and match and free cancellation are now standard search behaviours. These are not casual lookers. They are intentional planners, and they are not being served.

Complexity is no longer a blocker

Yes, the landscape is complex. Flights, pricing, accommodation types, cruises, coaches, rail, activities and local transfers. The backend of travel is layered. But the barriers are breaking.

Inventory management is improving. Profitability modelling is more agile. Pricing strategies including floors, ceilings and elasticity are being managed more effectively. The expertise of commercial and revenue teams, supported by better tooling, is making things possible that were unthinkable even a few years ago.

Why this matters now

This isn’t a 2030 problem. The Independent Booker economy “has already reshaped demand patterns, booking behaviour, and customer expectations, and the pace is accelerating. The brands that act fast will gain a structural advantage, deeper loyalty, richer data, and a stronger hold on high-value customers, while those that delay risk being disintermediated by platforms that solve this first.

Programmatic travel is now

Programmatic travel with human override is a model that uses automation and data to build tailored, end-to-end journeys at scale, eliminating the need for human involvement in most cases, but creating seamless hand-off points where expertise can step in to resolve friction, solve complexity, or build trust when it matters. We are entering a new era of programmatic travel.

This is about intelligently assembling trips based on traveller intent, not supplier constraints. It is more efficient. It is commercially smarter. And it opens the door to personalised, self-built travel options at scale, without forcing the traveller into rigid inventory blocks.

This is not a reinvention of travel. It is a re-presentation of what already exists in ways that feel aligned with how modern travellers actually book.

Tech and integration: the hidden engine behind a more robust third lane

A more robust third lane is only possible if the engine behind it is rigorous, modular and connected. That is where travel APIs, hybrid distribution models and smarter systems come into play.

Travel businesses increasingly use API layers that pull content from global distribution systems, airline APIs, hotel chains, local operators and consolidators. This blends the breadth of legacy systems with the flexibility of newer platforms.

Behind the scenes, platforms are shifting toward modular systems that separate out pricing, caching, inventory, business logic and analytics. This allows for faster updates, better performance and stronger resilience across regions and categories.

Match this with engines that can assess the entire trip holistically, not just segment by segment, and you unlock smoother workflows and more relevant options for the traveller.

This is not anti agent

Agents remain critical to the travel economy. High-touch cruise clients, complex group itineraries, long-haul premium trips. These customers will always benefit from expert support.

This is not about removing agents. It is about empowering both ends of the travel spectrum. The Independent Booker does not have higher expectations. They have different ones. And when the tools are not enough, a smooth path to agent support should be part of the solution.

The opportunity is not to replace either model. It is to create a more robust third lane. One that gives the independent traveller more freedom and control, while still providing a clean handover point when needed.

The infrastructure already exists to support this. Most suppliers are already connected. The challenge is not access to inventory, but how that inventory is surfaced, personalised and packaged in ways that match how this traveller wants to plan.

What this means for travel brands

For travel businesses, the takeaway is clear. Growth isn’t about adding more channels, it’s about redesigning the experience around how this audience already behaves.

That means:

• Rethinking how products and itineraries are surfaced, based on intent, not just inventory.

• Building seamless transitions between digital tools and human interaction.

• Creating service layers travellers would be willing to pay for, and monetising the planning phase, not just the booking.

• The businesses that do this well will not only win the $11 billion segment, they’ll build loyalty and margin advantages that competitors can’t easily replicate.

The opportunity is already live

This is not a persona. It is not a future concept. The Independent Booker already exists and they’re already spending billions.

They’re travelling more frequently. They’re planning with purpose. They’re booking across multiple formats and categories. And they’re doing all of this despite the lack of a truly seamless experience designed for the way they actually behave.

The question is no longer whether this customer exists, it’s whether the industry is willing to redesign around them. And that redesign won’t come from incremental tweaks. It will come from a fundamental shift: building programmatic travel with human override, where automation delivers scale and precision, and human expertise creates confidence and conversion.

The businesses that move first won’t just win bookings. They’ll redefine the value chain of travel itself, shaping how this $11 billion audience is served, and how growth is unlocked in the decade ahead.

The Independent Booker is already here. The question isn’t if this shift will happen, it’s who will build for it first.