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Travel Through The Net - Times of India (April 04, 99) |
As a kid, I travelled a lot. Every summer and Divali my brother and I would be bundled off to my grandparents' place in Nashik. Sure, we enjoyed ourselves with our doting relatives, but I would still dream of visiting exotic places when I grew up. Travelling to faraway lands with different cultures, and taking in sights and scenes I had till then seen only in movies.
But when I grew up, I opted for a job in a technology company.
And exotic travelling today usually involves catching the pre-dawn
flight to another city, sitting through a conference, making a
presentation, and then rushing to the airport to just about make
the check-in deadline. The different cultures I come across are
restricted to people on either side of my cramped airline seat,
and the sights and scenes are almost always the rooftops that
dot the landscape during takeoff and landing. Making up for that
is the chance I get on weekends to virtually travel around the
world, using the Internet.
While I rank among the passive users of the Internet as far as
travel goes, millions of others around the world are more active.
According to the 'Technology and Travel 1998' report by the Travel
Industry Association of America, 33.8 million travellers used
the Internet for travel planning, up from 11.7 million in 1997
and 3.1 million in 1996, a 1000 percent increase in two years.
An Ernst & Young report released in January this year reviewing
1998 Net shopping trends put travel among the top five purchases
last year, while Forrester Research expects the travel industry
to generate US$20.7 billion in 2001.
The Internet today caters to travel activity of all kinds ranging
from virtual sight-seeing and offering detailed information on
travel spots, to allowing users to plan their itinerary, make
travel reservations online, offering help with special needs and
even maintain online travel diaries! Known for putting control
in the hands of the user, and offering discounts unheard of in
real life, the Internet is fast tempting users to fulfil their
travel related needs online.
Virtual Sight Seeing
This is the most simplistic form of using the Internet for travel,
with users visiting websites that offer detailed information about
travel destinations, and virtually tour these places by the pictures
and commentaries offered. This is also the fastest and most inexpensive
way to go sight seeing today, with the only cost being that of
your Internet access. Lonely Planet is a hot favourite,
offering you the history, geography, attractions, suggestions
and a slide show of big travel destination, while Expedia
allows people to send e-picture postcards of sites they've visited
virtually.
Planning travel
Popular
with the do-it-yourselfers, who can go a step ahead and
use services like How far is it? to calculate the distance
between two places, or turn to sites like Mapquest to print
maps, chart out detailed routes, and get boarding, lodging and
city information with just a few clicks.
Online travel reservations
This allows people to use the Internet to book or pay for such things
as tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, and package tours. Since
the Internet puts the user directly in touch with the vendor,
a whole new breed of online travel agencies have been launched
giving traditional travel agents a run for their money, . In fact,
there are now four Internet travel agencies ranked in the top
fifty US travel agencies - Microsoft's Expedia, Preview
Travel
, Travelocity and Internet Travel Network.
However, even these online travel agencies are facing increasing
competition from airlines, attracted to the online marketplace
by the chance to make a direct sale and eliminating the need to
pay agents a commission, and also reducing customer service outlay.
Cannibalising the sales of these airline sites in turn is Priceline
- a site that allows users to name the price they'd pay for an
airline seat, sometimes getting seats at just 50% of the original
cost!
Maintain online travel diaries
This is another travel related use of the Internet. When Boaz and Galit
Shumeli decided to tour India, they posted their travel itinerary
on the Net for their friends and relatives from all over the world
to follow. They started their travel in September 98, and will
be ending it this month. Throughout their journey, whenever they've
come across a cybercafe, they've updated their travelogue on the
Net and easily kept all their friends updated on their adventures.
India by Motorcycle,
on the other hand, is the online diary of a 33-year-old Michele
Harrison who set out in October 1997 to travel across India on
an adventure all by herself, on a 500cc Enfield Bullet motorcycle.
As she circumnavigated India, she kept writing about her experiences
in India on a website on the Internet.
Special travel needs
are also taken care of by sites on the Internet, offering help
for everything ranging from healthy flying, to business travel
stress
, currency converters and even guides on travelling with
pets
! TravLang helps travellers with foreign languages,
by showcasing translations of common words, phrases and even sound
clips of the pronunciation so that the natives don't misunderstand
you.
Someday, I'll be able to say I've actually planned and booked
my vacation online and have immortalised my escapades through
a travel diary on the Internet. Till then, I'll enjoy my virtual
vacations on weekends, from an office chair in front of a computer,
grateful for the leased line in my office!