It’s pretty much a no-brainer why!

Travel

Hotelmarketing has a long post on Why “David” Virtuoso can coexist with Goliath “Expedia” which deals anew with the much predicted demise of travel agents proclaimed a few years ago. This, of courses, has not happened as that much hyped demise was never in the cards. What nobody can deny either, is that the number of  travel agents has not only shrunk considerably, but that the “order takers” sitting a a green screen and selling the easiest to sell deal to an uneducated consumer have indeed gone the way of the dodo bird.

That Virtuoso members never were in the latter category is known by pretty much anyone who knows anything about the U.S. travel industry. It might - despite a pretty effective PR machine - not have been a known fact in the public at large and the mainstream media who now use their success as proof that nothing has changed and the equally foolish prediction is being made that the online players like Expedia and Travelocity are history.

What tends to go unreported in this discussion is the fact that any intermediary between customer and supplier that does not add value will most likely disappear in today’s travel 2.0 market with total transparency and a better educated travel consumer than ever before. It doesn’t matter whether you are a “David” or a “Goliath” as in this market size really doesn’t matter.

Tags: travel, travel 2.0, virtuso, travel agents

JEB @ January 29, 2008