Travel companies should be committed to producing and developing their own IT services, it has been suggested.

Bharat Patel, commercial director of CodeGen, commented that these firms should only be looking into working on computer-based solutions and networks internally if they have a full grasp of the task that this presents.

He stated many businesses have taken this route in recent years and have failed as they "underestimated what is required to build an IT system".

Mr Patel added: "It is a very committed and long-term affair and you have to make sure that your strategy and management and the company's strategies are behind that."

He went on to say in firms choosing to follow this path, there has been "more failure than successes", adding the scale of cash resources available is also an important point.

Earlier this month, the Travel Technology Show was held at Earls Court, looking into how IT can be used during the economic downturn by companies in the sector.

A recent Connect survey found that the two major concerns about outsourcing services like IT support were 'loss of control' (56 per cent) and 'budget over-runs' (43 per cent).