Online Travel Websites. Should You Book Online?

On one of the blogs I read, I came across this article on maketing and helping customers for online travel booking sites. Now this isn’t really anything most people would want to read, but it did give me some ideas to talk about. I have read some reviews lately of some different programs for travel sites to use for booking. The two programs I looked at both failed. One failed miserably. Nothing could be booked. The other only succeeded in one area, most things could not be booked, selected hotels disappeared or could not be reserved. The reason I bring this up, is because if you get to a site that is blatantly doing a bad job, leave. Leave the site. Don’t try to struggle through it. Chances are that you will be able to find the same hotels, cars or flights on another site. Many of the travel sites use these programs without ever testing them. The software companies themselves sometimes don’t test the software.

When booking our Jamaican vacation, we actually emailed the owner of the beach house in Jamaica and did not go through a travel site. I still like being able to talk to someone and ask questions, such as “Is transportation from the airport to the villa included in the price?” “Do you have laundry machine or a service?” “When I order lobster from the restaurant, will it be rock or Maine lobster?” “Do you have stereos in the villas that have jacks that I can plug in my laptop or iPod to be able to listen to Bob Marley and Jimmy Buffett?” These are important questions that you can’t get answered from a website.

Many sites want to lure you in with beautiful pictures, flash movies and graphics. Make sure they haven’t more time and money into those, than the site itself.

The purpose of a travel site is serve you. They have no other purpose. It is like an impersonal travel agent. It should be able to answer questions, offer suggestions and help with problems such as rescheduling or canceling. If it can’t do that, then it might not be the best site to use.

Posted on July 18, 2007 - Filed Under Beach and Vacation Travel Tips and Help

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