Click, Click, and Away!
Business Week; New York; March 29, 1999; Mary C. Hickey; Amy Dunkin;

Abstract:
Vacationers have a world of travel resources available at the click of a mouse. The Internet is altering the way families plan their vacations. Not only has technology made travel planning more convenient, it has made it easier for consumers to explore more options and to be more adventuresome. Some 33.8 million travellers used online resources for planning trips in 1998, up from 11.7 million in 1997. Several vacation Web sites that vacationers can use to plan their trips are briefly discussed.

Summary:

While this article does not discuss the adventure tourism industry, many of the concepts that are discussed within it do directly relate, as can be seen by the following points.

Not only has technology made travel planning more convenient, it has made it ``easier for consumers to explore more options and to be more adventuresome,''

Few can deny this fact. Consumers feel less worried about exploring countless different options in regard to their holiday. While not yet found, common sense says that people would feel uncomfortable asking a travel agent to explore 20 different attraction providers.

Taking a guess at the Web address, I keyed in www.clubmed.com, and sure enough, Club Med's site appeared. After clicking on ``village directory'' and ``good deals,'' I homed in on the resort that seemed suited to our family. I filled in a rate request form, and by the next morning, learned that a weeklong stay for the four of us would cost about $5,000, including airfare. At that point, I could have entered my credit card number, hit ``send,'' and that would have been that. But curiosity got the better of me: Where else could we go for that kind of money?

This is a perfect example in regard to the hotel travel industry. This has helped within the adventure tourism industry, but to a far lesser extent. People often do not know the names of the companies providing the services that they require, and as a result of such they are forced to use search engines which bring up large numbers of sites.

To my surprise, Travelocity's ``low-fare finder'' came back with a $352 round-trip airfare to Paris, cheaper than to any of the other places I'd checked. But the next day when I logged on to buy the tickets, my bargain was gone. Increasingly, some of the best deals in airline travel are available on the Web. Sites like www.bestfare.com offer deeply discounted consolidator fares provided by bulk resellers. What's more, airlines, eager to eliminate travel agent commissions, try to lure people to their sites with special prices. Most also offer last-minute bargain fares: They'll notify you by E-mail of low-priced tickets to cities you have specified. 

The 'on-line auction' tool applies very well to the adventure tourism industry as well, but as always the question must be asked about cannibalisation, which results in less profits for the organisation. In addition to this, the question of consumer dissatisfaction must be questioned if like in this case, the person doesn't buy straight away and comes back to see it has almost doubled. 

Of all the electronic resources I've used, the one I've most enjoyed is the ability to connect with other travellers. Online services, special interest forums, and travel booking sites run chat rooms and message boards where fellow travellers offer recommendations and share expertise.

While this is most definitely an advantage of the internet, this author answers the problems with this. 

If there's a downside to travel planning on the Net, it's the almost limitless supply of information without an objective source to help you sort through it.

* All text in red indicates quotes taken from the full text article.