A Bookmarker's Delight: The Best Travel Web Sites

<B> A Bookmarker's Delight: The Best Travel Web Sites</B>

By Mary Ann McNulty

With travel among the hottest commodities on the World Wide Web, a search using the word "travel" or "business travel" will inevitably produce tens of thousands--and occasionally millions--of hits. To help travel decision makers identify the sites they really need to do their jobs, Business Travel News has narrowed the list considerably to highlight just 15 sites--in honor of our 15th anniversary--that every travel manager should bookmark. Some we have recommended before, but their value to travel decision makers keeps them on this short list. Some previous mentions have become so cluttered with advertising messages that we fail to find the value in sorting through the mess.

Not surprisingly, the sites that offer the most value to travel decision makers are those featuring time-saving resources: currency converters, weather forecasts, mapping, business tips, low-fare searchers or reams of government data such as on-time airline performance.

While vendor Web sites have improved considerably since our last comprehensive review of sites two years ago--especially for those who belong to the site owners' loyalty program--most still are designed to sell product, rather than provide a resource to travel buyers. Consequently, none are listed here. Of course, if the site is one of your preferred vendors, you're going to want to keep it bookmarked so that you can monitor the latest Web promotions and news.

Although a number of sites are positioning themselves as "portals" for travel purchasers, the content on the sites currently is too sparse to consider them of enormous benefit to time-sensitive decision makers who need one-stop shopping.

As before, BTN confined the search to home pages that are open to all. Consequently, the National Business Travel Association (www.nbta.org) and Association of Corporate Travel Executives (www.acte.org) were excluded, despite their valuable chat rooms and sample requests for proposals.




<B>1. Airlines</B>

Air Transport Association and International Air Transport Association
air-transport.org and iata.org

For a primer on air transportation, there is probably no better site than the domestic and international associations for airlines, the Air Transport Association and International Air Transport Association. The former offers some useful airline industry statistics, such as the industry earning history, airline prices, monthly traffic reports and a cost index that compiles line expenses and revenues of member airlines to compare and contrast quarterly changes.

ATA offers a history of the air transportation industry, including deregulation in the United States. While pertaining mainly to association business, the IATA site offers a Year 2000 section that is sure to be a frequently hit site in the months ahead. Besides press releases detailing IATA's work on facilitating that its members and the industry have prepared for Y2K, the site also features articles and speeches that could provide answers that travel managers could very well use in coming months.

Why It's A Bookmark: The Y2K section alone is more than enough reason to keep iata.org bookmarked for the rest of the century. Although the FAQ section currently contains politically correct answers to almost every question, it will be interesting to see how the answers might change in coming months as airline and government officials better assess the state of readiness.




<B>2. Business Customs</B>

Getting Through Customs
getcustoms.com

Beyond the offers to buy customs books that continually bombard visitors to this site is some sage advice about doing business in more than 60 countries around the globe.

Excerpting relevant chapters of books about business practices or faux pas of international travel, the site also features accurate holiday calendars and time zones, unlike some government sources. The site also links to various articles that company president Terri Morrison has authored for various publications. In addition to advice about gift buying, Morrison recently added links to actually purchase the items that are guaranteed not to culturally offend the recipient.

Morrison, along with co-author Wayne Conaway, wrote the series of five doing-business books and a sixth on business etiquette will be out soon. Links to sections in books about gift giving also are available for those who prefer to shop themselves.

Why It's A Bookmark: Recognizing that business travelers and managers often called upon to be cultural etiquette experts have other jobs to do, the owners of this site have tried to combine both advice and the ability to purchase on one site. For example, the site links to the U.S. Department of State's Passport regulations as well as an express passport vendor. It also offers articles about dressing, gesturing and even blundering abroad.




<B>3. Currency Converter</B>

Oanda Inc.
oanda.com

Who would have thought that a site could offer so much on currency conversions? But Oanda, the Internet arm of Olsen & Associate, a firm that develops forecasting technologies for financial markets, continues to amaze with this site. Not only does it offer converters for 164 currencies, but historical currency rates back to 1990.

The converters are available in seven languages now, including English, French, German and Italian. The site also offers Cheat Sheets for Travelers, a pocket-size multi-value table to help calculate costs.

Why It's A Bookmark: Besides all the great data for travelers, decision makers from finance to expense reporting could use the site to plug in exchange rates. Among the site's new features are the ability to enroll for e-mail updates on currency changes and to customize a currency converter for corporate use.




<B>4. Destination Content</B>

Ontheroad.com
ontheroad.com

Besides checking out the hot restaurants, business events and opening performances at the destinations, members of ontheroad.com now can use the virtual concierge to secure restaurant reservations and event tickets in the latest upgrade of this "tactical destination guide." Although access to the full site costs $99.95 annually, enough portions are available free to make it worthwhile.

The site currently features 500 restaurants, 6,500 events and hundreds of insider tips for more than 10 North American cities and London, with others to be added soon, said Malcolm Kaufman, CEO of the San Francisco-based firm. Ontheroad.com also this year began distributing its Snapshots--two-page briefings of a handful of top restaurants, business events, major trade shows, entertainment options, sporting events and museum offerings--through a number of consumer Web sites.

Why It's A Bookmark: A few corporations, including Charles Schwab, are private labeling the offering and including it on their travel home pages. Thirty-day free trial corporate memberships are available.

Unlike many city-specific content Web sites, this one is designed for the business traveler or manager and presents data in a format he or she can readily print or download and stick in a briefcase.




<B>5. Health Risks</B>

Disease Control
cdc.gov/travel/travel.htm#reference

From disease outbreaks around the globe to geographic health recommendations, this site should provide everything one needs to answer questions about health risks while traveling. Operated by the Center for Disease Control Travel, part of the federal government, the site provides a mix of advice and data repository, and summaries of cruise ship health inspections.

Why It's A Bookmark: The site offers specific information about common travelers' illnesses, such as influenza and diarrhea, and provides a detailed view of health risks around the globe. Search CDC's Yellow Book, a database of international travel health advisories, for free, or check the Green Sheet for summaries of the twice-monthly cruise ship sanitation inspections. You also can search for advisories by geographic areas.




<B>6. Lodging</B>

Smith Travel Research
str-online.com/news/news_events.html

For annual scans of the largest hotel markets in the country and quarterly reviews of the financial performance of the hospitality sector, there is not a more comprehensive site on the Web than Smith Travel Research's press releases. The site isn't large, but it offers the performance data on the lodging sector that travel decision makers need for meeting planning and/or the negotiating season.

A monthly subscription-based newsletter provides occupancy, room rate, supply, demand and revenue information for the total U.S. lodging industry. Monthly and year-to-date results also are provided for census region, price levels, location types, top 25 lodging markets and all 50 states.

Why It's A Bookmark: For the hotel sector, the site provides just the right amount of trending and performance overview that travel managers need to do their job, without having to invest in a hotel firm.




<B>7. Mapping</B>

MapQuest
mapquest.com

This site offers users the ability to find more than 3 million locations worldwide, obtain driving directions, overlay places of interest and create personalized maps. The company went public earlier this year, and has a market capitalization of $599.1 million.

Why It's A Bookmark: One of the hottest enhancement areas of development for corporate travel home pages is the ability to plot preferred hotels to corporate locations, to graphically show travelers exactly where they'll be spending the night, and to provide directions. MapQuest licenses its technology to corporations to provide for such customization, but even its standard offering for consumers will allow them to program destinations, from which they can obtain driving directions and maps.




<B>8. Meeting planning</B>

EventSource.com
EventSource.com

While the meetings area has become a hotbed of competition for online meeting planning technologies, few sites offer "everything" a decision maker needs to book a meeting NOW at a decent rate. EventSource.com is working on it, and a recent infusion of several million dollars in capital just might provide the revenue to develop more real-time interaction and data.

The site currently offers the ability to research meeting destinations by property, geographic region, type of property or a number of other variables. Users can check static data and availability on 9,000 event sites in Asia, Canada, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, Mexico and the United States, grouped by state/country and then city.

Completing an electronic request for proposal on the site, users can broadcast their booking request to multiple properties, and get rate and availability responses within 48 hours via e-mail. They also can visit about 1,000 destinations or take advantage of hot date promotions. The site also provides links to industry associations and suppliers.

Why It's A Bookmark: Designers of the site truly understand the importance of speed and the critical data elements that meeting decision makers need to make use of an interactive site. While the panacea remains an interactive site that can immediately confirm space availability, the e-mail turnaround is the best option yet.

A search of all Chicago meeting facilities, for example, produced a list of 298 properties, each with the number of guest rooms, amount of meeting space, theater-style capacity and location. Besides just hotels, the listing included museums, boats and public buildings available for rental.




<B>9. Transportation Center</B>

Department of Transportation
dot.gov and bts.gov

The Department of Transportation and its Bureau of Transportation Statistics provide a wealth of charts, statistics and hard-to-find information and analysis on their Web sites. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics continues to feature some amazing charts and graphs on financial and operating performance by the nation's air carriers. Unfortunately, the most current data available is for 1995 and '96.

The On-Time Statistics database is now searchable via three types of engines: a new JavaScript-enhanced search capability, the basic capability for a single city pair, and an advanced engine to search an entire market with multiple origin and destination airports.

Why It's A Bookmark: As more corporations are striving to link their airline deals to service performance--including ontime performance--they're increasingly using such government resources as a factor in their benchmarks. The site also could provide some valuable insight at the negotiating table or when trying to lobby for more service to a particular destination.




<B>10. Safety</B>

Corporate Travel Safetycorporatetravelsafety.com

Although much of this site is designed to promote safety programs or products, there is a vast area of links to other valuable travel safety sites. The site details the audio, video and custom training sessions by 17-year-veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department Detective Sergeant Kevin Coffey--who has trained more than 10,000 travelers for several large corporations, including Hewlett-Packard, Motorola and Xerox--to prevent stolen briefcases and hotel crimes or gain travel "street smarts."

Why It's A Bookmark: Besides raising the awareness of travel safety, the real strength of this site lies in the dozens of links, all grouped under specific categories such as airports, airlines, subways, maps, etc. But underneath, you'll find answers to questions, such as "What questions can I ask a pilot and when?" or "What can't I carry onboard an airplane?" and links about traveling with children. Among the other offbeat links tossed in are ones detailing American table manners and useful foreign words and expressions. The site also addresses avoiding becoming a victim of subway crime and common travel scams.




<B>11. Travel Search Engine</B>

Yahoo!
yahoo.com

From yellow pages to e-mail, news to data mining, Yahoo! is going head-to-head with its many competitors striving to be the most valued portal--or Internet gateway--to travelers. In researching this report, BTN tried several search engines and terms, and Yahoo! produced the most valuable links on all searches involving business and corporate travel, airlines, hotels and car rental.

Why It's A Bookmark: There are plenty of sites and research dissertations that detail the methodology of search engines, but when it comes down to it, it's what works.




<B>12. Travel Biz Resources</B>

Infotec-travel.com
infotec-travel.com

If it pertains to travel--corporate or otherwise--chances are Infotec-Travel has covered it in e-mail threads or links to relevant research pieces at one time or another. A labor of love of travel writer Marcus Endicott, the site is a collection of listserve postings and relevant research that has emerged as a result of those discussions. For example, the site links to briefings on travel insurance, satellite phones, the controversial automated traveler identification systems used as security screening measures, and call center and voice response technologies. Some vendor links are outdated, though.

Why It's A Bookmark: The range of topics covered on this site and expertise of the regular subscribers to the e-mail listserve is truly a cross section of every geographic region, industry category and area of interest. The range simply isn't covered on most other sites.




<B>13. Travel Agent Resources</B>

Positivespace.com
positivespace.com

Designed for travel agents, this site offers a wealth of content and quickie surveys on hot travel topics. Among the lists on the site are affiliate suppliers, associations, educators, Internet mailing lists and technology vendors. The site also lists links to area and zip code decoders, help for disabled travelers, passport information, tourism offices and travel advisories.

Why It's A Bookmark: Although several areas are designed for retail travel agencies, the site offers unique resources that corporate rent-a-plates or new ARC corporate travel departments just might need, such as 24-hour services. In the archive of "ask the expert" questions, managers will find valuable tips on everything from computer reservation system contracts to e-commerce.




<B>14. Business Travel News</B>

Business Travel News
btnonline.com

Besides the daily Web flashes of relevant news and current issues, btnonline allows users to search by issue, name or reporter through all issues published since 1996. The site also offers the Online Black Book, a virtual "who's who" of corporate travel suppliers. Besides the name, address, phone and fax, many of the listings now include e-mail addresses and Web URLs.

Why It's A Bookmark: Besides all the great resources the site offers, it has a forum board where managers can pose questions to others or editors.




<B>15. Web Fare Searcher</B>

Trip.com
trip.com

Although most consumer-based booking engines offer little for travel decisions, Trip.com has a free feature that no other site has duplicated: Intellitrip. Using robotic agent searching software, similar to that used on search engines, Trip.com has programmed Intellitrip to hit multiple airline sites to truly find the lowest airfare, whether it's in a global distribution system or on a site.

Unfortunately, for now, users still have to revert to the airline Web site to actually book those low fares, but the technology eases the process a bit. The site also offers the ability to book trips through the GDS and even track the progress of a flight on a map and learn its estimated time of arrival.

Why It's A Bookmark: While others are promising to quickly give Intellitrip a run for its money, for now it's the only game in town. For smaller companies interested in booking online without the hassles of installing anything or training travelers, Trip.com offers some travel policy checks, reporting and even negotiated discounts.