The numbers are pretty significant.  The website took bookings for 972,000 room nights while call centres handled bookings for 863,000.

However, website bookings still only make up 13 per cent of Hilton's business, with much of its custom still coming via travel agents.

But Hilton is not unusual in trying to increase the number of bookings it takes through its own websites. The group finds that internet bookings are more cost efficient and give them more control over how much they sell their rooms for.

"Stronger online bookings translate to cost efficiencies which are then ploughed back into technology improvements that benefit all of our distribution channels," says Tom Keltner, Hilton's president for brand performance and development.

However he admits that the internet isn't the only game in town. "There always will be a segment of the travelling community that prefers to talk with a friendly customer service agent, which is why our reservations centres continue to play a critical role in our distribution strategy," he said.

Other companies in business travel encourage their customers to use online channels in other ways.

Many airlines now charge fees for customers who choose to book over the phone rather than online. British Airways, for example, has charged those who book by phone £15 per ticket since the end of last year.

More than 17 per cent of the airline's revenues worldwide now come through ba.com and around 50,000 people per week are booking from there.

Swiss International Airlines has just introduced variable fees depending on how a booking is made. Long-haul bookings made via a call centre will cost SFr80 (£37). Unlike other airlines, Swiss also intends to charge for online bookings; it hopes a flat fee of SFr25 (£12) will encourage people to book via the web rather than by phone. At the moment, the fees will only be payable for bookings made in Switzerland. A Swiss spokeswoman said that at present there were no plans to introduce the fees in the UK.

Online booking has transformed the airline Flybe. In November, it announced that it had made operating profits of £14 million. Much of this has been made possible by cost reductions. The share of bookings made via the internet has soared from 6 per cent 18 months ago to more than 80 per cent now.

It still has some way to go to match easyJet's reliance on the web for bookings. 95 per cent of its tickets are now sold online. To encourage passengers to choose that option rather than calling up, the airline offers a £5 discount on bookings made online and doesn't allow phone bookings for flights more than two weeks ahead, thereby restricting access to the very cheapest advance fares to its website.

Figures from research firm PhoCusWright in the US show that while travel bookings are increasing only by around 2 to 3 per cent each year, the balance between on and offline bookings is shifting dramatically. Last year, online bookings soared by more than 30 per cent and the firm forecasts that online bookings of leisure and unmanaged business travel will represent a third of all bookings by 2006.

As well as rechannelling direct bookings with travel suppliers away from the phones, the internet is also enabling blue-chip companies to move their dealings with their business travel agencies online, with cost reduction as a driver.

Leading self-booking tool GetThere processed more than three million bookings for its 3,000 corporate clients in the third quarter of 2004. In Europe, which has generally been slower than the US in the uptake of such tools, the volume of bookings increased by 144 per cent on 2003.

Power generation to financial services conglomerate GE is one company that has embraced self-booking tools and actively discourages its travellers from making bookings over the phone.

Bookings from its GetThere self-booking tool from its employees throughout Europe are channelled to a Carlson Wagonlit centre in Warsaw, Poland, thus benefiting from the lower cost environment. Phone bookings are still permitted and handled, in English, from the same centre but Carlson Wagonlit staff instruct GE employees who phone up to make bookings for simple point-to-point journeys to hang up and book online.

It seems that the days of speaking to a human being to book a business trip are now well and truly numbered.

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