TravelAsia, May 31, 1996
"WE'RE GOING DIRECT"
The inevitable question of how the Internet will
affect travel agents came up during the Cornell meeting at Phuket
when Northwest's James Reinnoldt talked about the waning influence
of agents with the advances in information technology.
So Luzi Matzig of Diethelm Travel was put on the
spot. His answer was quick, "I am at the receiving end.
About 98 per cent of our business comes through travel
agents and tour operators, that's not good.
"They are in a tough market and they try and
get better deals from us all the time. So I have more than 1,700
pages on the Web, and we are getting more and more direct bookings
as well."
Question of, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
More on Luzi Matzig