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470 TRAVEL ANDTOURISMonline session length, the number of hours spent online
per week, and the number of Web sites visited regularly,
registered with, and paid for by users (FIND/SVP, 1994 –
1997; UCLA, 2001).
The Internet and travel industry partnership has
proved beneficial to both industries (Gretzel, Yuan, &
Fesenmaier, 2000; Hardie, Bluestein, McKnight, & Davis,
1997; Jupiter Communications, 1997). Travelers’ usage of
the Internet has grown progressively from 1996 to 2001.
The incidence of Internet use among American travelers
has increased from 28 million Internet users in 1996 to
110 million in 2001 (TIA, 1998; 2002a). The Travel In-
dustry Association of America Report on Technology and
Travel for the year 2000 (TIA, 2000) reported that 89%
of Internet users took at least one trip (for business or
leisure) of 100 miles or more, one way, away from home
during the year and 44% of Internet users were frequent
travelers (who had taken five or more trips in the previous
year). According to the 2001 National Travel Survey, 68%
of current Internet users used the Internet to make travel
plans (TIA, 2002a). Travel plans include activities such as
getting information on destinations and checking prices
and schedules. This number was up from 27% of Inter-
net users in 1997 and 10% in 1996. Among Americans
who did travel planning over the Internet in 1997, 7%
did all of their travel planning over the Internet, 16%
did most of their travel planning over the Internet, and
nearly one-third used the Internet half the time for col-
lecting travel information. The TIA report also indicated
that in 2001, one third (33%) of American travelers who
are online indicated they actually booked or made reser-
vations online. The large majority of these travelers pur-
chased airline tickets (80%), reserved a hotel room (62%),
or rented a car (46%). In addition, many online travel-
ers purchased tickets for cultural events (27%) and/or
aamusement parks (14%). As shown in Table 3, these
numbers were slightly lower in 2002, possibly reflecting
the uncertainty caused by the economic downturn and
political instability through terrorism.Table 3Travel Products/Service Purchased Online In
2002 (among 39.0 Million U.S. Travelers Who Have
Internet Access and Who Booked Travel Online)Travel Products/Services 2001 2002
Airline ticket 80% 77%
Overnight lodging accommodations 62 57
Rental car 46 37
Tickets—cultural event 27 25
Travel package 13 21
Tickets—spectator sporting event 16 18
Reservations for personal sports NA 13
(like golf/skiing/water sports)
Tickets—amusement park 14 12
Tickets—museum or festival 11 11
Cruise NA 6
Tickets—tour or excursion NA 6Source: TIA (2002a).Trend #3. Changing Forms of Information
Technology as a Medium for Communication
Industry experts have increasingly questioned whether
the Internet is different from other media and if it
needs to be addressed in new ways using new strategies
(Godin, 1999; Hoffman & Novak, 1996; Zeff & Aronson,
1999). The Internet is special in that both consumers and
firms can interact with the medium, provide content to
the medium, communicate one to one or one to many,
and have more direct control over the way they com-
municate than using other media. When everyone can
communicate with everyone else not only the old commu-
nication models become obsolete but also the communi-
cation channels that are based on them (Evans & Wurster,
1999).
In contrast to traditional media, the Internet combines
and integrates the following functional properties: (1)
information representation; (2) collaboration; (3) com-
munication; (4) interactivity; and (5) transactions. As a
consequence, Internet communication can be much more
holistic than communication through traditional media.
The Internet can simultaneously integrate informational,
educational, entertainment, and sales aspects; this flexi-
bility makes the Internet rich and appealing but also very
complex and difficult to deal with. Interactive media such
as the Internet call for interactive marketing. “The essence
of interactive marketing is the use of informationfrom
the customer rather thanaboutthe customer” (Day, 1998,
p. 47). It differs from traditional marketing because it is
based on a dialogue instead of a one-way communica-
tion, and it deals with individual consumers instead of
mass markets (Parsons, Zeisser, & Waitman, 1998). Us-
ing these capabilities of the Internet may lead to deeper
relationships with customers and greater personalization
of goods and services. Travel and tourism fit especially
well with this interactivity aspect of the Internet because
they are an information-intensive and experience-based
industry.
The Internet enables destination-marketing organiza-
tions to blend together publishing, real-time communi-
cation, broadcast, and narrowcast (Hoffman, Novak, &
Chatterjee, 1995). It is a medium that attracts attention
and creates a sense of community. It is a personal medium,
an interactive medium, and a niche and a mass medium
at the same time (Schwartz, 1998). In contrast to tradi-
tional media, the trade-off between richness and reach is
not applicable to the Web. Evans and Wurster (1999) de-
fine richness as the quality of the information presented
(accuracy, bandwidth, currency, customization, interac-
tivity, relevance, security). Reach refers to the number
of people who participate in the sharing of that infor-
mation. The trade-off between richness and reach leads
to asymmetries of information. Thus, when destination-
marketing organizations are able to distribute and
exchange rich information without constraint, “the chan-
nel choices for marketers, the inefficiencies of con-
sumer search, the hierarchical structure of supply chains,
the organizational pyramid, asymmetries of informa-
tion, and the boundaries of the corporation itself will
all be thrown into question” (Evans & Wurster, 1999,
p. 37).