Online Travel Bargain

Written by yatin patel


Continued from page 1

How Pricing and Distribution Become Key

9/11 caused a dramatic shift in how consumers booked their travel. The instability caused a large drop in demand for airlines, hotels and car rentals leading to ever-lower prices. This low demand factor forced travel suppliers to introduce unprecedented discounts. Travel suppliers struggled to sell seats, rooms, car rentals to a significantly shrunk leisure and business travel market. Every air seat, room and auto not booked cost their companies money. Better to sell dirt cheap than not to sell at all. But how to getrepparttar word out?

Smart, proactive suppliers adoptedrepparttar 134082 Wal-Mart business model—sell low and distribute inexpensively and efficiently. But how?

The Internet allowed them to reach consumers, sell inventory outstrip their less progressive competition. Those suppliers who had no clear Internet strategy or understanding of howrepparttar 134083 Web and online distribution works suffered.

Discount hotel sites attract millions of buyers with their special rates leading to stratospheric sales through these channels. They thrive on hoteliers selling their distressed inventory at a fraction of their normal rates. Occupancy isrepparttar 134084 lowest its been in years, hoteliers continue to work with leading online retailers to move inventory at lower price.

The $6.3 billion in online hotel sales (2002) with are split roughly evenly between discount agency sites and hotel Web sites. PhoCusWright projects that around 75% of discount agency hotel site sales are viarepparttar 134085 merchant model, whererepparttar 134086 agency typically takes a 20-30% “margin” onrepparttar 134087 hotel net rate (instead ofrepparttar 134088 usual 10% commission). This approach has helped profits at Expedia and Hotels.com, who have roughly 60% of online discount agency hotel sales. Travelocity and Orbitz are institutingrepparttar 134089 same successful approach. Other notable players thriving in this arena are Hotwire.com, http://www.hotels-and-discounts.com , Lodging.com and Travelweb.com.

What isrepparttar 134090 Future? Online travel growth will continue to grow in 2003-2005, but it will slow down year by year compared torepparttar 134091 record gains see so far. However millions of travelers haven’t yet made their first purchase sorepparttar 134092 market is not near saturation. Technological improvements will soon make it possible to more easily dynamically package vacation deals including air, hotel and car leading to even lower prices but higher average sales. So growth is projected to come from customers buying more, higher-ticketed products online.

The growth ofrepparttar 134093 online distribution channel will prove beneficial torepparttar 134094 end user whenrepparttar 134095 suppler finds it easier and more cost-effective to distribute their inventory there than overrepparttar 134096 traditional distribution channels. As technology becomes mature inrepparttar 134097 online distribution sector, it will become more effective and user friendly forrepparttar 134098 Buyers and thus will attract more Suppliers. Due to its low cost of distribution and emerging ability to package and cross sell inventory, prices will be attractive for years to come, until this channel eventually becomes a commodity.

By Yatin Patel Published in http://www.siliconindia.com July 2003

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Travel with a reliable partner

Written by Rufat Kuliyev


Continued from page 1

In addition torepparttar competition, another problem, a visitor is having onrepparttar 134081 web today is a trust. We have to agree that it is not an easy to pay your hard earned money onrepparttar 134082 web without knowing anything about website. It is another problem web visitors are having today. You have to be very careful when you choose a website onrepparttar 134083 web. The best solution is to choose a website which isrepparttar 134084 old experienced onrepparttar 134085 web. There are many young sectors onrepparttar 134086 web where it is hard to find an experienced website. There are a few websites in travel industry that exist onrepparttar 134087 web forrepparttar 134088 last 10, 15 years. It is a good criteria to chooserepparttar 134089 right website. Another advantage ofrepparttar 134090 experienced websites is that they know how to serve their customers since they have a good experience, they know different types of problems that may appear during hotel reservation and they know how to solve these problems professionally. That's whyrepparttar 134091 best choice is to visit this kind of websites orrepparttar 134092 ones that connected to them through affiliate links thus providing almostrepparttar 134093 same quality of service. When you visit a travel website pay attention to Customer Care section, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Cancel Reservation Policy, Confirming Reservation, Payment Issues and other Frequently Asked Questions section. Availability and detailed description of these sections gives another credibility to a website. Pay attention torepparttar 134094 availability ofrepparttar 134095 phone number with a live person to reply to any of your question. If you find subscription to a newsletter option that says that a website team builds a long and strong relations with their customers. A good website provides secure reservation thus protecting their customers from many problems onrepparttar 134096 web. BBB.org is a Better Business Bureau organization that provides information on over two million organizations and websites and it is advisable to check any website before you invest. When you visit a website and find BBB sign with a link taking you torepparttar 134097 main base of this organization testifying that a website you visited has a long presence onrepparttar 134098 web and a reliable partner then you can stop this website and choose it as your travel provider. If this sign is not available it doesn't decrease credibility of a website but its availability is preferable.

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