When I was buying a car a few months ago, the Internet was of
invaluable help. The tool I liked the best was a comparison
shopping feature on Yahoo that allows you to look at two makes and
models side by side and easily compare them. So if I wanted to know
which of the cars I was considering had more trunk space or head
room, I just clicked on the two in question and the features came
up side by side for easy comparison.
I used this feature repeatedly during the two or three months it
took me to decide on which car to buy. To replicate this kind of
comparison shopping in the physical world would have taken a lot
longer and involved a lot more wear and tear.
I haven't seen an Internet service of this kind yet in travel
but it would appear to have applications to our industry.
Wouldn't it be useful to be able to look at two seven-day
cruises side by side in this fashion? Or two 14-day tours to the
same European cities?
Instead of comparing trunk space or head room, you might want to
compare the ports visited by different cruise ships or the square
footage in the cabins. In the case of tours, you might want to look
at the number of days spent in each city, the amount of time at
leisure or the hotel selections.
The comparison-shopping feature might even work as a way to
evaluate tours versus cruises as options for people who have a
specific dollar figure in mind for vacation.
I might want to put in parameters that say "I have $2,000 for a
vacation and 14 days and I would consider either a tour or a cruise
so show me some options."
I know that a good travel agent does this sort of thing every
day but there should be a way for agents to offer this service via
the Internet for people who want to do some careful
comparison-shopping.
If there already is such an animal on the Web, I guess I've
missed it. If you know of it, please let me know the site name.
If not, someone in the wide, wide world of Internet travel ought
to be thinking about how to do it.