The Internet is at the same stage as the car industry at the beginning of the 20th century according to flights price co

The Internet is at the same stage as the car industry at the beginning of the 20th century according to flights price comparison website Cheapflights.co.uk chief executive David Soskin. He believes travel companies should brace themselves for the Internet

Published: 13 Jul 2006

The Internet is at the same stage as the car industry at the beginning of the 20th century according to flights price comparison website Cheapflights.co.uk chief executive David Soskin. He believes travel companies should brace themselves for the Internet

Analysing the progress, Soskin says the main difference between now and a decade ago is that the Internet is now widely accepted as a means to research and book travel. He says travel companies are going to have to up their online game to keep up with the pace of change.

Soskin, whose company celebrates 10 years online this autumn, warned the industry would get left behind if it didn’t respond to consumer demands such as communicating by e-mail instead of the telephone and setting systems up to cope with volumes of e-mail.

Soskin said: “In 1996, the Internet was the preserve of a handful of computer experts and technology wizards. Not many observers predicted it would become a revolutionary medium with the power to improve people’s lives. And, it is still at a very, very early stage.”

Soskin also voiced his support for the human factor in travel saying it was too complex to ever be entirely automated. He acknowledged the importance of customer reviews and feedback for certain types of website but added that they were nothing new.

“The clear advantage of the Internet over other media is to provide users with something they would never have been able to find out about in the past. Providing travel is a service business so Cheapflights has always favoured providing a choice of websites or telephone numbers. We will send about three million calls to the UK travel industry this year. Many of our advertiser partners prefer to get calls than click-throughs to websites. It sits alongside the internet very well,” he said.

Talking about the future of travel on the Internet, in terms of it being evolutionary, it was added that the much vaunted “Web 2.0” is merely a term given to some of the new and not so new functionality which new technology permits. Future technology improvements are a certainty but he dismissed the likelihood of a ‘silver bullet’ for travel.

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