Buying Travel Online

If you were moving into the market for internet travel as a small company , which rout would you employ

My company would have a two-fold strategic approach as an online travel agency . Firstly , as a `typical ' online travel provider and secondly , as an exclusive membership provider giving clients access to the absolute base rate offered by Airlines , Hotels and Car Hire providers for the cost of an annual membership fee

The typical independent online travel section of my company would employ the same strategies as most other companies offering flight , transfer

hotel , car hire , and special excursion bookings . The difference however , would be in the ease of itinerary planning and the information provided to the client . Alliances with airlines , transport companies hotels , and excursion providers would be a dual relationship . The first part of this relationship would be a pricing structure based on a commission to my company for referral of bookings and the second part would be to strategically align with primary providers to offer our client members to them in a direct format

The direct format would allow those service providers to reap the entire profit of the booking as long as they guarantee the clients of the company , the lowest possible fare , or rate . My client base would access these prices in a one-stop shop , by paying an annual membership fee of US 150 to have direct access to all of the lowest rates on one website The use of the US currency encompasses the most widely used currency for trade . In this type of strategic relationship with service providers they then retain their profit margins but also work with a provider to encompass the multi-facets of their product base . The company would essentially be a portal for travelers to directly access their rates and for travelers , they would only need to access on website to guarantee they receive the absolute lowest rate or fare , instead of spending hours searching multiple provider websites and comparing prices

In developing itineraries using online travel agencies , very few offer a comprehensive search engine for comprehensive multi-destination travel This is usually when the customer has to refer back to email or telephone to work with a consultant directly . In developing the website of the company , extra developmental and associated costs will be invested in providing a user-friendly multi-destination itinerary builder . This builder would access multi-destination air travel , build in accommodation with each phase , along with the option of adding car hire or excursion booking . The builder would give the client multiple choices of options along each booking phase , including airfares , hotel and extra costs . This would give complete control to the client on the best options available to them . Along with the multi-destination builder , an inclusive component would be to accumulate the costs to each point so that the client can view their travel cost in `real-time ' and measure them against their budget . This will help in the decision making process

Clients would log-on each time they wish to use the...