IBISWorld has published its 2025 industry analysis of online travel agencies in the UK, one of Europe's most contested markets for selling travel online.

The report arrives with the sector under pressure from several directions at once. Booking.com, Expedia and Airbnb dominate UK consumer search, while metasearch players such as Skyscanner and Kayak sit between suppliers and agencies, taking their cut of referral traffic.

For sellers of travel, the interesting question is always the same: where does the money actually end up? IBISWorld's analyses typically size the market, track revenue growth, and score competitive forces — data that agencies, suppliers and investors use to benchmark their own share.

What's at stake for travel sellers?

The UK is a major outbound market, so shifts here ripple through distribution worldwide. When agencies lose share to supplier-direct channels or to Airbnb's expanding supply, the commission economics (the fee an agency earns on each booking) shift with it.

Hotel chains keep pushing loyalty programs and direct booking incentives. Airlines have largely reclaimed ownership of their inventory. That leaves OTAs leaning on dynamic packaging, advertising revenue and payment margins to defend profitability.

Independent agencies face a harder calculation: pay rising metasearch and search-engine costs to stay visible, or accept shrinking direct traffic. Each IBISWorld update tends to sharpen the picture of who is actually growing.

Why the report matters now

Industry analyses like this one get cited in lender models, acquisition talks and strategy decks. A revised market size or growth forecast can move how banks view agency financing and how suppliers weigh channel investment.

The 2025 edition lands as travel demand has normalized after the post-pandemic surge, making structural trends — consolidation, rising acquisition costs, direct-booking pushback — easier to read than they were amid the distortion of 2021-2023.

In short: the new numbers will tell the trade whether UK agencies are still compounding growth or fighting for a shrinking slice of the booking pie. Full findings are available from IBISWorld directly.