Travel Website and Tourism Distribution System, Research Paper Example

Despite being competitors, Travelocity, Orbitz, and Expedia have quite similar website features. All three websites allow visitors to reserve travel services such as airline tickets, hotel bookings, and car rentals. When the consumer searches for a particular service, he/she is shown several results that could be sorted according to service provider, price, and distance from location etc. The websites also market vacation packages as well as limited deals as promotional tools. Moreover, they offer travel recommendations as well as publish articles on popular tourist destinations. These results are displayed in real time which is why their results are time-sensitive. The prices on these websites react to the forces of supply and demand which may be why prices are on the average higher during busy seasons.

Tourism distribution system has two primary purposes which are getting information to the right people, at the right time, and at the right place and secondly, providing them a platform to make purchases as well as pay for them. As we analyze Travelocity, Orbitz, and Expedia operations, it is clear that these websites are important components of the overall tourism distribution system. They not only provide information to the visitors around the clock but also display real-time results of search queries. In addition, website visitors cannot only purchase airfares, book hotel rooms and reserve cars but can also pay for them immediately. These websites are able to perform functions that have traditionally been done by travel agents because they are linked to the airlines’ computerized reservation systems (CRS) or global distribution systems (GDS) (Mill and Morrison).

Reference

“Marketing.” Mill, Robert Christie and Alastair M. Morrison. The Tourism System. 4. Kendall Hunt Pub Co, January 2002. 216.