The NEW Face of Online Travel Reservations
Written: Jun 04 '00 (Updated Jun 04 '00)
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Travelocity and Preview Travel Merge
Logging on to Travelocity to make my usual last-minute reservations for next week's business travel, I noticed some cosmetic differences. The site was, well, more colorful than before. That new yellow color reminded me of something I'd seen before. Wait, I thought! It reminds me of, of, of...Preview Travel! I had conveniently forgotten last October's announcement of the intended purchase of Preview Travel by Travelocity.
Now, I was experiencing the result of the completed transaction. A quick visit to Preview Travel's home site confirmed it. I was greeted with an announcement of the completion of the merger and was redirected to the new Travelocity. The new Travelocity is the "best of both worlds," drawing on the strengths of both services while overcoming their inherent weaknesses.
PreVelocity? TravelTravel?
A long-time Travelocity user, I had also dabbled with Preview Travel on occasion. What I've enjoyed about Travelocity has been the extensive access to more than 700 airlines, the ability to construct itineraries by schedule, to find lowest fares, and to book hotel and car reservations as part of the trip. Booking with Travelocity has always been fast--its strong suit--but they have been a little short on the travel advice and package deals.
Enter Preview Travel. Their distinctive competence has been the travel guide, the cruise, and the vacation package deal. They provided excellent information that was pleasingly displayed, a designer's dream. But reservations themselves were somewhat klutzy to make.
The NEW Travelocity
The new Travelocity borrows the community features including vacation and cruise packages from Preview and combines them with the ease and speed of booking of the old Travelocity. One advantage of Preview Travel was the ability to store multiple traveler profiles, and that facility was quickly added to the new Travelocity menu.
The powerful combination of two major online booking sites simultaneously overcomes their limitations and creates a great deal of leverage. Other online booking services have cause to be concerned. Travelocity is the online booking arm of Sabre Holding Company, which owns 70% of the new company. Preview Travel's stockholders own the remaining 30%.
The new company immediately cut a deal with America Online to become the ISP's exclusive online booking agency for all its portals (AOL, CompuServe, Digital City, and Netscape). Yahoo! is getting into the act as well, by announcing investments in the new Travelocity.
Works the Same as Before
Although I have no intelligence on how the transition worked for the Preview Travel community, I can say that from a Travelocity member's perspective, the transition to the new site was painless. My account information, preferences, and stored credit card numbers were there waiting for me.
The new kid on the block is the combination of two of the bigger old kids on the block, and the customer stands to benefit while their competitors should be quaking in their boots.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
lap0530
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Location: Anderson, SC
Reviews written: 122
Trusted by: 332 members
About Me:
Psychology and management professor and business consultant
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