Like the bookselling trade the travel industry has been turned upside down by the internet. With most people now using the web to book their travel the traditional travel agency has all but disappeared. Are printed travel guides the next vicitim?
Wayne Curtis’s piece in the Atlantic, Weni, Widi, Wiki, gives us a glimpse of what the future might hold.
On his trip to Seattle last fall Curtis decided to use only online resources to guide him as he explored the Emerald City. He “would depend on the kindness of strangers,” relying “solely on user-generated information” as he mapped out his lodging, sightseeing and culinary needs. No guidebooks, no picking from the racks of tourist brochures in hotel lobbies, and no help from the concierge, all his “decisions would be based on advice from TripAdvisor, Yelp, Chowhound, Wikitravel, and other online travel communities.”
“The information online is often piping fresh—some of these reviews had been written just days before I arrived” says Curtis.
As is the case in the bookselling world the flood of content now available to all has its drawbacks, Curtis found that “the biggest downside of Travel 2.0 is the surfeit of information—how do you sort through all this detail and random advice?” This same dilemma is front and center in the online bookselling world. How does one make sense of the fact that there could be 100 copies of the same book available for sale with a price range of $1 to $100? Unless you are a seasoned book person the answer is you can’t. For the general public searching for a book online is becoming more problematic with each passing day.
We are in need of a trusted source.
Thanks to Brian Cassidy for the lead