The techniques which are used by international students to book online English courses in Australia, USA and Canada in 2009 and 2010 are illustrated by the pie chart.
In general, booking via the Internet became increasingly popular in all the countries, while Pre-booked with agents declined. It can also be seen that Canada experienced the most dramatic shift toward online booking, whereas the USA showed the least change over the two years.
In Australia, the amount of students booking via the Internet increased from 24% in 2009 to 39% in 2010, becoming the most common method. At the same time, there was a significant 16-percent drop in Pre-booked with agents, while Arrival and Other underwent a slight change. Meanwhile, the USA had stable figures for all the measures. The proportions of students using each method remained close to one-quarter, with only a small rise in bookings through agents (from 24% to 28%) and a slight fall in the use of other methods (from 26% to 23%).
By contrast, in Canada, there was a sharp decrease in the number of students booking by Arrival forms from 45% to 26%, a difference of 19%. It is also noticeable that Pre-booked with agents and Other met a dramatic growth in 2010, about 12% in both techniques. Meanwhile, the Internet stayed almost unchanged, just slightly rose by 2%.