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468 TRAVEL ANDTOURISMof advertisers and tourism businesses are discovering vir-
tual travel communities as particularly suitable vehicles
to communicate messages to and establish relationships
with specific target markets. Thus, it is unclear if virtual
travel communities will remain in the control of con-
sumers and will continue to be used as personal tools
to share tourism-related information or if their focus
will shift toward more commercial content and usage
as promotional tools.Impacts of Internet Technology
on Travel Behavior
The Internet has had and will continue to have a tremen-
dous impact on the way consumers search for, purchase,
consume, and remember tourism experiences. However,
the Internet is not the only channel through which con-
sumers obtain information, communicate, or complete
transactions. Rather, it is one of many options currently
used by tourism consumers. Word of mouth, for in-
stance, remains the most popular way of gaining access to
first-hand knowledge about travel destinations and
tourism experiences. Also, travel magazines and movies
continue to be significant sources of inspiration. It seems
that the concept of the “hybrid” consumer who uses many
media and technologies simultaneously (Wind, Mahajan,
& Gunther, 2002) is especially applicable to tourism. Thus,
the Internet has not replaced traditional channels but
has placed additional options in the hands of consumers.
Nevertheless, many current technology developments aim
at convergence and the creation of one channel that can
satisfy all information search, transaction, and communi-
cation needs and, therefore, this situation might change
in the near future.
In general, the Internet and its many different ap-
plications have provided consumers with an incredible
number of choices, opportunities for comparison shop-
ping and much more control over many processes related
to the consumption of tourism experiences. The success
of auction models such as Priceline.com, where con-
sumers name prices rather than accepting the industry-
imposed price, indicates that the market has shifted from
a supplier- to a consumer-dominated market.
Tourism has always been characterized by many alter-
natives. Yet many consumers lacked the necessary infor-
mation to take advantage of the variety of tourism offers
available. The Internet has, to a large extent, closed this
information gap. Internet consumers are much more in-
formed, and this new level of information and knowledge
among “new” consumers has opened up many choices.
The larger extent and different, more experiential nature
of information available to consumers has also led to
more accurate expectation formation and more informed
decision-making, both of which are especially important
for the consumers of information-intensive, intangible,
and high-involvement tourism products and services. On
one hand, the ease with which information can be made
available online has placed this abundance of informa-
tion at the disposal of the consumers. On the other hand, it
causes situations of severe information overload and leads
to many concerns about trust. The Internet facilitates
information representation and distribution; however,it also makes it more difficult for consumers to iden-
tify false information. Many tourism businesses are very
small and operate thousands of miles away from where
their customers live. It is, thus, extremely difficult for
consumers to verify their existence, not to speak of the na-
ture and quality of their business practices. Consequently,
the consumers of travel- and tourism-related products can
be expected to continue relying on offline and online in-
termediaries as well as official Web portals such as desti-
nation marketing sites to obtain reliable and trustworthy
information about tourism establishments.
The Internet has increased the speed with which infor-
mation moves between tourism suppliers and consumers,
and many consumers have started to expect instanta-
neous information and support with respect to all aspects
of their trips. The Internet has influenced not only per-
ceptions of speed but also the extent of personalization
expected by the consumers of tourism information and
products. These new expectations in terms of speed and
personalization spurred by the Internet represent an enor-
mous challenge for the tourism industry and leave many
consumers disappointed with the level of service they
receive.
One of the main advantages of the Internet is that it
provides consumers with the opportunity for anytime-
and-anywhere access to information. Many aspects of a
trip that had to be planned well in advance can now be fi-
nalized while on the road. Internet technologies that pro-
vide consumers with suchen routeaccess to information
have the potential to significantly transform trip planning
and influence travel patterns. Recent trends indicate that
travel is in the process of becoming more spontaneous
and that many travelers choose to travel to destinations
that they would not traditionally have considered because
of the high risk. One can only speculate about the impact
of this trend on tourism in the Internet era as extensive
planning is an integral part of the tourism consumption
process and careful preparation is often essential to the
success of a trip (and sometimes even crucial to the sur-
vival of the travel party).
The advent of the Internet has brought about many
dystopian fears related to the future of tourism. Many
predicted the end of travelper seand pictured tourism
experiences as being confined to virtual reality simula-
tions. The future of tourism on the Internet from a utopian
perspective of course looks much brighter. Such a per-
spective interprets Internet experiences as a substitute for
travel and, thus, a great opportunity for individuals with
disabilities or other constraints that limit them from trav-
eling. Neither scenario has been realized so far. Internet
technologies have discouraged some types of travel and
encouraged others. The experiences presented on the In-
ternet are far from constituting real substitutes for actual
travel, but they provide invaluable information about ac-
cessibility and allow individuals with special needs to pre-
pare more accurately for real-world trips. Consequently,
when analyzing the influence of Internet technologies on
consumer behavior in the context of tourism, one has to
constantly remind oneself that the Internet is still in the
process of becoming and that its impact on the consumers
of travel and tourism products and services can be partly
grasped but not yet fully understood.