Tech notes

Jul 6 2006 By Herb Kim, The Journal

Do you remember when you had to rely on Ceefax and Teletext or sit in a bucket shop for hours to get late deals and up-to-date travel information?

Well, thanks to the web those days are way behind us - getting travel information and booking trips online has never been easier or more popular.

And the recent purchase of online travel company Orbitz for $4.3bn confirms that it has also become a very big business.

With that in mind, I thought it would be worth looking at some of the more popular travel websites.

It's good news that Fodors.com and Frommers.com - two of the biggest names in the guidebook business - have both made large chunks of their book content available on the website.

These sites are particularly good in helping you prioritise places to see and things to do in addition to advising on hotels and restaurants.

Another growing and hugely popular resource in the online travel guidance field is TripAdvisor.com.

Like so many other successful internet businesses, TripAdvisor succeeds by getting thousands of the people in the community to chime in on cities, attractions, hotels and restaurants. I now use TripAdvisor for nearly every trip I take to a city that's new or unfamiliar to me.

Sometimes it uncovers great finds but other times you do find that highly ranked places were biased by small sample sizes. As the number of contributors grows, hopefully we'll see the quality become more consistent.

In terms of booking tickets, hotels and cars, it's worth visiting websites such as Expedia.com, where you can book your flights and hotel directly.

That said, it can also be worth going straight to the airlines' websites. I booked three tickets to New York on Virgin.com and they were £400 cheaper than on Expedia.

Online travel can improve further still, and there are huge opportunities for any pioneering businesses that want to step in and lead the way. And better yet, there's no reason why those businesses shouldn't come from the North-East.

Herb Kim is chief executive of Codeworks, the North-East's centre of excellence for digital technology.