Travel Technology

Experts routinely describe new travel agent technology in the context of electronic travel commerce. There are few other technology topics with similar market potential or emotional appeal—to the extent that new business start-ups, product announcements, and seminar programs are dominated by predictions of the potential of e-commerce.

This is usually described as an exceedingly simple business proposition: either the demise of travel agents is imminent as vendors adopt new strategies to bypass them or else vast new frontiers are opening to anyone with the most modest travel credentials provided only that they are able to operate a World Wide Web site on The Internet. The idea that reality might be less certain and that traditional and non-traditional channels may both flourish in the future appears to have been lost.

The true effects of electronic commerce are complex and intertwined with emerging business strategies affecting more of society than just travel. The opportunities opened to all segments of the industry, vendors and agents alike are substantial. So is the task of sorting fact from fancy. The businesses able to prosper through electronic commerce in coming years will those able to find sustainable strategies and develop business models that deliver what their customers truly want to buy. Unfortunately, there is often little relationship between sound business practices and the “Internet Hysteria” that has swept the travel industry for several years.

This report discusses electronic selling as contrasted with traditional travel sales and describes what the travel industry may realistically expect from electronic commerce. It describes the overall state of the electronic travel sales scene in the U.S., predicts what characteristics successful competitors will likely possess over time, and attempts to put the current euphoria in proper context.

"Once again a new year brings another round of what passes for industry research. Although notoriously over-surveyed, the travel industry remains awash in bad data, ill-conceived and poorly executed research projects, and self-serving studies that are relevant more to the next round of funding or the next newsletter sale than to developing a real understanding of markets and trends.

Eventually the industry may get better at labeling useless research for what it is (the trend is not positive, however), but for now the very few good studies routinely drown amidst the hyperbole of research that can’t connect with real insight—or those that connect all too well because the result was fairly evident before the process began."