By: David J. Wardell

© 1998 By: David J. Wardell.  Reproduction or redistribution in any form without written permission is strictly prohibited.

Although at first it appears that this may be a worthwhile contribution to the understanding of electronic travel commerce, something of a closer look is indicated before making too many assumptions.

First, the report is based upon research done for TIA by "Jupiter Communications." Among Jupiter's major impacts on the travel industry has been seminars espousing the virtues of internet travel commerce. That doesn't necessarily mean anything, but its worth noting.

Further, a PR announcing a report that includes the language, "Travel products booked over The Internet will grow enormously over the next five years as competition in the market heats up and millions of new consumers discover the joys of booking travel online," gives the impression that the authors may have somewhat of a viewpoint on the issue that might not be shared by everyone and that, at least partially, is subjective rather than objective.

Reviewing the full press release from TIA, available on TIA's WWW site, doesn't promise truly inspirational reading from the full report. The PR contains several statistics and charts predicting the fantastic growth on online travel commerce--similar to statistics people have been publishing for years and without any indication as to how the projections were made (except to say that the report models are proprietary).

There is nothing in the PR regarding consumer attitudes, demographics, or preferences--although a TIA description of the full report says that at least some of this information is present.

In all, the conclusions contained in the PR strike me as largely intuitive and not especially enlightening. I'm spending the several hundred dollars the full report costs and we'll see if more substance and substantiation are forthcoming.