Copyright © 1997 Jim Crandall. All rights reserved.
Two years ago, if I had told you there were hundreds of travel-related sites on the Internet and dozens of great planning aids for business and recreational travelers, you probably would have been impressed. Today, those numbers have grown to tens of thousands of travel pages on the World Wide Web, thousands of which are dedicated to travel planning alone. This new statistic is not only impressive, it's astounding, and it verifies recent media reports that the travel industry is one of the front-runners in the rush to the information superhighway.
But no highway, electronic or other, can survive this kind of traffic jam. The glut of digital information, which started to be a problem over a year ago, would now be a disaster except for two or three key organizational tools. The first is, of course, the so-called "navigator" (like Netscape or Internet Explorer) which is now almost taken for granted. Another obvious aid is the "search engine" (like AltaVista or Infoseek) which allows more sophisticated Web researchers to pinpoint desired data without endless surfing. A third, easier and friendlier way to hunt for online information is through an "index" (like c|net or Starting Point) which organizes Web sites into categories and subcategories, usually accessed through now-familiar hypertext, and hypergraphic links.
One of the latest entries in the travel index contest is LAXnow, a site emphasizing the tourist facilities and attractions of Los Angeles in particular and Southern California in general. As one of the travel professionals asked to beta-test this site, I complied in hopes of discovering the next Travelocity or Go Explore. While LAXnow has not yet joined that lofty company, it is, at least, nipping at the heels of some of the established regional pages.
Fighting my bias against black backgrounds, I scanned the main LAXnow page, and decided that it is definitely on the right track. The content designer guarantees its usefulness with the inclusion of the usual Travel, Lodgings, Vacations and Sports categories, then surprises us with such unusual goodies as Gambling, with links to nearby Las Vegas as well as local Native American gaming parlors. A fairly complete Arts and Crafts area, not to be confused with a separate Museums listing, provides an entertaining hour or two of browsing graphics-intensive cyber galleries and quirky vanity pages, and a very thorough Communities page provides a seldom-seen neighborhood breakdown by ethnicity and sexual preference, as well as the expected geographical subdivisions.
On the negative side, the secondary pages are unimaginative, far-left-justified lists of hypertext, which could be forgiven were it not for their dark-blue-on-black illegibility. Equally disconcerting are the areas which are, without apology, incomplete. The few pacifying "Under Construction" or "Coming Soon" signs warn wary surfers of numerous dead-end cyberpaths, and links to the resources of neighboring counties too often result in the dreaded "File Not Found" message. But hey, if we had to wait for Web sites to be perfect before they were posted, we would probably still be working Gopher and WAIS on the old, text-driven Internet.
Another relatively new "one-stop" online travel site has actually been around for a long time. Most travel agents will recognize TravelFile as one of the most comprehensive providers of information in the industry, once available only through airline-owned, computerized reservation systems like SABRE, Apollo, Worldspan, Amadeus or Abacus. TravelFile's new Web server now links millions of ordinary Internet users to its extensive data banks, as well as providing travel consumers a way to order brochures and make online reservations. Other features of this site include the NTA Tour & Travel Shoppe (a TravelFile exclusive) which contains detailed information on over 600 tour operator members of the National Tour Association, and a Calendar of Events containing thousands of listings for cultural activities, sporting events, and festivals. Unlike other travel indexes, TravelFile locates destinations almost exclusively with an "EZ" internal search engine rather than simpler category buttons and pull-down menus. There is also an Advanced Search tool which allows users to create lists of specific types of travel suppliers using a straightforward, fill-in-the-blanks format. As one would expect, this polished collection of travel pages will serve the recreational and business traveler quite well, especially those who take a little extra time to learn key words that consistently yield quality travel information.
The question of which Internet information retrieval system will eventually serve us best is still unanswered. Will Net navigators fuse seamlessly with new operating systems and get super friendly? Will "intelligent" search engines someday be able to generate "perfect" pages from plain English phrases? Will "one-stop" indexes like those reviewed here continue to compete for the title of "Best Travel Information on the Web!" until only a few super-sites remain?
I suggest that a fourth possibility is more likely, at least for the near future: the emergence of a new breed of travel agents who are willing to exchange their cluttered offices for Web domains, trade in their glossy print brochures for GIF and JPEG downloads, and apply their obvious expertise to the organization of electronic data that can be easily deciphered by the lay traveler. Best Fares Magazine, also a discount travel service specializing in airline, rental car and hotel reservations, could emerge as one of the survivors. Originally an insider newsletter aimed at the frequent traveler, this publication has evolved into a full-format magazine and added a Web site, and also established the owner, Tom Parsons, as the unchallenged guru of discount travel. Few Web sites can equal the fares obtained through Best Fares' money-saving strategies and ticketing services, not to mention its coverage of the monthly mini-wars and short-term travel bargains which are relentlessly tracked by Parsons and his staff. While certain portions of this site are still reserved for magazine subscribers only (via password access), the public pages are definitely worth a look.
In my initial column for WWWiz in August 1995, I speculated, "Is the travel agent an endangered species?"
"No," I decided, adding the caveat, "But if they want to be in business this time next year, they're going to change." Judging from the likes of Tom Parsons, they are changing-as are the Web navigators, the search engines and the Internet indexes-at least those who intend to survive.