One of the defining moments for travel agencies occurred in the
aftermath of airline deregulation in the late seventies and early
eighties. The law that created the deregulated environment opened
the gates for legions of new carriers to enter and for exponential
growth in the number of additional air services.
The result was that the public soon became perplexed by all the
available options and sought out the services of travel agencies to
help them through the confusion.
History is repeating itself as the amount of information on the
Internet grows and as public usage of the Web's research capability
increases.
Consumers are learning how to delve deeply into the resources on
the Web and gather up extraordinary amounts of information. But as
the volume of information they acquire grows, many consumers become
overwhelmed.
Travel agencies report customers' showing up with stacks of
material printed out from Internet sites. The customers' question
to the agencies is: what am I to make of all this?
Agents always have had to deal with this issue to some extent.
The Internet didn't create the first opportunity for prospective
travelers to gather information. Customers often have come into
agencies with information gathered from newspapers, magazines,
guidebooks and other sources.
But the depth of information on the Web is far beyond that of
any previous source and there is a great likelihood that consumers
seeking travel knowledge will suffer fact-finding indigestion.
One of the challenges for agencies is to help customers cull the
useful information out of the mass of material they bring along.
Agencies often may find that they must politely but firmly convince
the customer that what they have concluded from their independent
research is not the best approach to fulfilling their travel
aspirations.
The need to cope with customers' rising use of the Web to do
independent pre-trip research requires travel agencies to ensure
that the agents themselves understand as much about the Internet as
possible.
Providing the best service now means developing as full an
understanding as possible of this infinite library that purchasers
of travel are referring to before they ever consult an agency.