Holidays online!

Holidays using E-media

 The creation of the Internet has revolutionised the world in a sense that a consumer can access a global market place, allow transactions for completely anything via online shopping. One of the most ever developing online markets is online travel institutions. Travel companies have hugely expanded since the introduction of web, connecting with enormous variations with companies internationally.  Think about it... When you shop for tickets to travel, have you ever thought of how many features a travel company was consider when selling a ticket? The responsibilities of a travel company ranges from advertisement and mass booking of accommodation to insurance and safety of millions of people! Booking a holiday online provides company a great profit as their products are accessible to the entire world rather than a single community crowding their local travel agents just to feel a heat wave in a hot seaside. Using their webpage a travel company can advertise their entire brand; customers are able to gain more information at a faster rate and at a cheaper cost thus contributing to the increasing percentage of online holiday purchases.

Holiday searching through print has rapidly declined; more people are now using the internet to find their holidays. As holiday brochures can only give you limited information on the features of the holiday, internet has filled a market gap where you can receive a disposable amount of information of anything you dictate. A questionnaire performed by www.Harvestdigital.com using a sample of 50 people shows 50% of people when booking holidays do extensive research online and then book over the telephone in contrast to 9% booking solely in travel agents.  Over half of the people booking and researching online use Google solely as a search engine when researching thus decreasing the media plurality as only recommendations made by Google is candid. However this shows the competition between travel agencies to fight for ‘Google’s sponsored’ and the first three results of search.

There are also risks involved when ordering a holiday online and this has often been publicized on the news; due to unfortunate weather or negligence of the airline or travel company. Many customers who fail to buy insurance when purchasing with a credit card may not be compensated. Also many experience fear of being a victim of fraud. With the growing rate of travel companies, how can you dictate which is authentic and what is fake? There is high growing rate of online credit card fraud, where a credit card is involved; the perpetrators may also use the customer's credit card information to obtain cash or to make purchases of their own.

Overall the online market of travel companies has expanded highly. More and more people are travelling on yearly holidays despite the state of our economy! The development of the websites will continue to grow and fill more spaces within the market.  Despite the dangers of spending such money over the internet today’s society use the prospects of internet for any purchase.