The great British tradition of leafing through summer holiday brochures on a rainy afternoon, comparing the price of different packages and companies, could soon be a thing of the past.
JMC, the tour operating arm of Thomas Cook, has predicted that prices in brochures will disappear within the next two to three years - followed eventually by the colourful tomes themselves.
Terry Williamson, deputy managing director of JMC, said last week that access to the internet and digital television was 'exploding' so fast that traditional brochures would become unnecessary.
He forecast that, initially, the normal and rather complex pricing tables in brochures would be replaced by price 'bands' giving lower, medium and upper ranges of what a holiday would cost.
The consumer would then contact a travel agent or operator by telephone or online to get a firm quote.
Williamson forecasts that the practice of printing prices will soon be obsolete. And in time travel agents will have only interactive screens in their shops.
'We will effectively see brochures transferring out of paper into a new medium. Pricing as we know it today will become obsolete,' said Williamson.
He denied that removing pricing from brochures would reduce customer choice and also denied holiday companies would use the fact prices were not on display to put them up.
'People will not have to do all the complicated price calculations. And there will be more space on the pages of brochures for pictures of the resorts,' he said.
Williamson forecasts that increasingly people will use home and office computers, travel agents, internet cafés, digital television or mobile phones to book their holidays on the internet. They will feed in their holiday requirements on a travel website and receive a price quote on the spot, which they can book immediately.
Alternatively, consumers could punch in the maximum price they were prepared to pay and receive online feedback of holidays on offer at or below that price, he said.
Most UK tour operators print three or four editions of a particular brochure over the 18 months that the packages featured within are on sale.
They can change the prices of the packages displayed in the brochure only by publishing a new edition. Trading standards rules demand that prices for a particular package cannot rise from one edition to the next - they can only remain the same or fall.
Williamson admits that by removing published prices and distributing products only online or by telephone, tour operators will be able to change their prices as often as they want - even daily.
Holiday Which? spokeswoman Kate Levine said: 'We do not see everyone being able, or even keen, to have access to the internet. People like being able to look at a brochure and it is easier to compare prices by flicking page to page than on a computer screen. It is easier to shop around.'
She said the issue of whether prices would rise was difficult to predict. Tour operators should be able to present more comprehensive pricing information on the internet than in brochures, but there was not necessarily enough competition among the big companies to ensure that prices were kept down or properly explained, she added.
