“All roads lead to Rome” – this is certainly true, at least when it comes to how to book flights to the Eternal City or other travel destinations. A recent survey from AirPlus suggests, however, that the road more often than not leads past a travel agency. But that could change in the future.

It’s a neck-and-neck race between travel agency, reseller and online booking. When it comes to the question of where travelers like to book their business trips, there are no clear favorites: 37% go to a travel agency, 32% use their company’s “reseller,” and 31% turn to their computer to book their flights online themselves. Those are the results of a recent AirPlus survey of readers of this blog. For around two months they had the opportunity to take part in the survey “How do you book your business trips” under the heading of “polls”.

Even though travel agencies are still (slightly) in the lead, the survey demonstrates a trend: travel agencies no longer hold as strong a lead as they did even a few years ago. Results from an “AirPlus International Travel Management Study“ from 2005 showed that almost 90 percent of all company representatives chose to book their flights with a travel agent.