Finding
travel bargains online not as simple as advertised
TORONTO (CP) - It's that time of year again when the
thermometer drops and daydreams turn to sandy white beaches
and mojitos.
Many prospective travellers surf the Internet in the hunt
for bargain sunshine voyages or flights back home for the
Christmas holidays.
Jason Sorby, a 34-year-old from Winnipeg, frequently uses
sites like Travelocity and Expedia to research destinations.
But when it comes time to book, he goes elsewhere.
"It's unfair to them but it's a great service to
just check prices and have a look," said Sorby, who's
currently planning an eight-day Hawaiian getaway with his
fiancee. "I'll call the hotel directly and see if
they'll offer me a comparable price."
The problem, he said, is the horror stories he hears
through the grapevine about nasty hotel rooms, with dirty
linen and cockroaches, booked through the Internet.
"It's not to say that there's anything disreputable
about the sites," added Sorby, who is web faithful
enough to do all his banking online.
"I'm just a planner. It's a big decision. You only
get so many days off a year and you only have a finite
amount of money to work with. I don't want to screw it up.
... If you booked online it just feels so impersonal. You're
showing up blind at this hotel with a printout off your
computer hoping everything works out. God, that scares
me."
Jordana Wexler, a 31-year-old from Toronto, buys most of
her plane tickets online.
"I'm looking for a good fare," said the
traveller, whose most recent trip was to San Francisco.
But Wexler admits she'll call a travel agent to reassure
her an online price is good before punching in her credit
card number.
So while travel sites are a growing business, there are
still some hurdles to overcome.
"There's no doubt over time the best bargains have
migrated to the web," said William McGee, an online
travel expert with the non-profit group Consumer Reports
WebWatch, based in New York.
But consumers need to be savvy web surfers if a
bargain-basement deal is their main objective.
"There is no silver bullet, single site that you can
go to and always find the best fares," said McGee.
"It's a challenge. At this point I don't know if
there's any easy answer other than comparing (the sites)
against each other and reading the fine print."
Online travel sites have staff working one-on-one with
hotels and airlines to secure deals, explained McGee.
"They have aggressive sales staff. In one city they
may have the lowest hotel rate but in another they're not
because another sales staff got those rates," he said.
"There's a lot going on behind that screen. It's
like the Wizard of Oz ... It's a very complex
industry."
Things like fare jumping, where the price suddenly
changes midway through a transaction, and paid placements,
where airlines and hotel chains pay premium fees to bump
their listing to the top of the display, continue to
frustrate consumers, he said.
Furthermore, the growth e-travel has been so rapid that
consumers haven't had a chance to figure out how best to
shop online.
An example, says McGee, is a recent study by Consumer
Reports WebWatch which turned up some terrific travel deals
through cross-border surfing - something not even he, an
avid e-traveller, had considered doing.
The study found that European travel sites are good
alternatives to North American ones, as places like
TravelPrice, a little-known Belgian site, frequently beat
out high-profile resources like Expedia, Travelocity and
Orbitz for international flight fares, especially if booking
between European countries.
So what's a consumer to do in the quest for a cheap rate?
It all boils down to shopping around, clicking on several
sites to find offers and then comparing the rates.
Even Travelocity advises research.
"You should do your homework," said Amy Ziff,
the site's in-house travel expert. "You should have a
sense of what a deal is, and what's available last
minute."
Another, equally effective technique is checking an
airline's or hotel's own website, said Stephen Smith, who
teaches in the department of recreation and leisure studies
at the University of Waterloo in southern Ontario.
"Sometimes the direct contact with the supplier can
yield a deal as good as the discount providers," he
said. "This is being driven by the desire by hotels and
airlines to reclaim control over their own pricing."
He gives the example of being in Ottawa last year
checking into a four-star hotel.
"A gentleman came up next to me and asked about a
room, without a reservation," he said.
The clerk quoted the man a price of $189, to which the
man asked if there was a corporate rate. The clerk came back
with $169.
Not happy with the price, the man "pulled out a
Blackberry or Palm Pilot, got onto a discount website, found
the same hotel offering a deal at $99 and said, 'I'll take
this rate.' "
Smith says the hotel manager agreed to give the man the
discounted price.
"Hotels are beginning to discover that these
Internet rates are, in effect, becoming their rack
rates," said Smith.
© The Canadian Press 2004
Comment: I believe
the action described in the final paragraphs is a precursor
to what will be occurring on a regular basis in the
corporate travel markets (actually, it will happen for all
products and all markets).. How will you prepare your
organization for this change?
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