Travel/Tourism & Web 2.0

2007-06-08

I finally found a site that mentions both travel and web 2.0 in the same article:

“In the world of travel, disparate data from direct sources, travel agents and intermediaries made it nearly impossible to find the best price or options for an itinerary. Sites like Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz transformed that forever (and sites like Kayak are creating even more efficiency).”

Found on http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0/zeitgeist

Although I understand the context of the statement, the writer, Rand Fishkin, misses one important point when it is applied to these sites. In all cases, the sites mentioned are travel agents who all use the same underlying technologies: Sabre, Worldspan, Amadeus, and Gallileo. That’s right, there is no difference between Expedia and the travel agent down the street except that if you buy from the travel agent, you can always complain to them if something goes wrong. What is missing from the statement is that in no case has there been any attempt by companies to change or disrupt the distribution model of travel products. Why is this the case? Because the major airlines and hotel chains own the GDS companies and changing the model now would be an incredibly expensive endeavour. What I don’t understand is why a distribution model based on archaic technologies like mainframes, dumb terminals, green screens, screen scrapers, and even DOS would even be considered revolutionary. Show me a company that is trying to change the way travel products are managed and distributed and I’ll show you a company that truly deserves to be referred to as Web 2.0.

Oh wait… I know one.