[back]

One of the fascinating features of the Web is that anyone can afford to participate by developing a Web site and putting it online to the World. You can find Web sites put together by school kids that have cost them absolutely nothing. You can find Web sites put together by travel companies with £100 million e-commerce budgets. Both are equally available for viewing by interested surfers. This facet of the Web makes it a unique medium. 

However, it was brought home to me recently that this media nirvana of the Web has a downside, one that could seriously handicap the travel industry's desire to thrive on the Web. Let me explain. Genesys runs a Web site called travelfromHere.com. It is a UK travel directory designed to look and feel similar to Yahoo! In the last few months we received requests to be listed from three Web sites that, for different reasons, could potentially bring travel on the Web into disrepute.

The first had the URL (Web site address) www.airtours.org.uk, suggesting that the site was owned by the Airtours organisation. It was actually an anti-Airtours site that had been developed by some disgruntled holidaymakers. The site was removed after a few weeks, no doubt at the behest of Airtours solicitors. (Had the site used the URL www.holidaymakersagainstairtours.org.uk I expect that this would have been perfectly legal.)

The second had the URL www.easyrentacarltd.co.uk. This site came complete with orange backgrounds to its pages but had nothing to do with Stelios' new car rental firm. The site is no longer there.

The third site was www.bookingflightinuk.com. This was a two page Web site offering cheap flights. We were not sure of the sites validity and so emailed the contact mentioned asking if the site was connected with an ABTA or IATA travel agency. We received a three word reply that was not the kind of language one hears within our industry, so our suspicions were verified.

We check all submissions to travelfromHere.com so none of these ended up being listed by us and, in fact, we were able to let Airtours and easyRentacar know about the sites trying to pass themselves off. However, many search engines have completely automated submission processes and would have listed all three of these sites. This is the issue. Members of the public reaching Web sites that are not being operated by bona fide organisations might simply not realise. If they then have a bad online travel purchase experience, they will think twice before again shopping for travel on the Web.

Now, if you are sitting in Expedia's, ebookers' or edreams' offices reading this, you are not going to be too worried. You have a healthy advertising budget to reassure the consumer that your brand can be trusted. No, this is an issue for smaller travel companies who cannot afford to build national brand recognition. They are the ones that will suffer if confidence in the industry's presence on the Web is dented.

What can be done? Clearly, there is a need for an organisation trusted by the public to stamp its seal of approval on travel Web sites. The first such that comes to mind is, of course, ABTA, and most ABTA members with Web sites do proudly display its logo. I am sure AITO members display their logo. Flight specialists show their IATA logo, BITOA members display theirs, as do ETOA members, ITMA members, TTA members, TTI members. Hang on! How on earth is Mr Joe Public meant to know about all these organisations. 
What is required is just the one authority that is known and trusted by the public. It would need to inspect travel sites that want its "ring of confidence". That takes time and time is money. It would also need to advertise in the press so that consumers learnt about its existence. Where would it get its financial backing for this? Nowhere. I simply cannot imagine travel companies paying for their stamp of approval and so it is unlikely that there will ever be a such an organisation.

So, in the absence of anything else, I would suggest displaying membership logos. Link each to a page on your site explaining what the organisation stands for and why it should give the visitor confidence. Don't do as some sites do and link logos to the membership organisation's home page. This is inviting visitors to leave your site and do business with all those other members who are your competitors. You would not want that!

[back]