Aug 9 2005
More moves to add value.
Sabre Enhances Sabre Vacations Agent Tool with Travel Impressions Tour Inventory:
Travelocity and MasterCard Offer Free Zagat.com Subscription When Booking a TotalTrip Vacation:
Both these articles show that the online industry is clearly looking for ways to move away from selling commodity type single travel components purely based on price to a more profitable model. Service enhancements and incentives to customers to book what Travelocity calls a “TotalTrip” are all strong indicators of this shift.
Another development supporting this shift is the introduction of more online travel booking tools that can be used by travel agents to better serve the market segment of people who prefer to take that route rather than planning their own packaged trips online. Either way, intermediaries have to add value to stay in the game.
