How The Internet Is Used To Book Flights Tourism Essay

It is fair to say that internet has revolutionized the way we buy airline tickets or choose our holidays. The internet is responsible for a major shift in airline and travel industry. This was not the same some years before as when the internet was in its infancy, the main problem of booking airline ticket online was to find out what you are looking for and also having the confidence to buy it online due to the money involved in it. Booking tickets online is not something that is uncommon these days. But nowadays it has become like a second nature for large number of people to open up the search engines and purchase all kind of things from electronic items, foods to air tickets. “David J http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_J_Cook”

The success of internet giants like Amazon and eBay with its secured payment systems like PayPal has given confidence to the buyers to purchase things online and today almost everyone knows the advantages and benefits of buying flight tickets online for the domestic as well as international travel. Although it’s not very easy task but the airline and travel agent websites has made internet travel booking so simple that even a person with little computer knowledge can purchase cheap tickets online and enjoy benefits. Quick booking facilities and best profitable bargains can be enjoyed at the ease of sitting at home rather than standing in queues for hours on airline ticket counters. The online buyer can easily compare the airfares of different airlines and can choose the best bargain and online booking is the best solution to get cheap flights tickets and also the best travel solution for those travelers who cannot afford to spend too much on traveling. “David J http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_J_Cook”

And cheap tickets are not hard to find now, it’s easily available online through the convenience of doing it at home rather than visiting a travel agent or airline office to book it and within few clicks tickets can be booked using your credit or debit card and within few days the e-ticket is delivered in your mailbox and at your correspondence address. Today there are lots of other websites other than airline official websites where the travelers can book their tickets and these websites are designed in such a way that a traveler has to just specify the date of travel and destination and the search engine within that websites pick up the best deals and the discounted offers from any airline. In recent times there are lot many deals offered by airline companies and travel agents exclusively for online booking, which is one of the another reason to book tickets online. “http://www.articlesbase.com/flights-articles/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-buying-airline-tickets-online-447497.html#ixzz14spqtU1q”

The advantages of online booking or the services which the airline websites offers for online booking are discussed below

Convenience

Booking tickets online removes a lot of direct or personal contact with the travel agents or airlines as booking the ticket on the window counter of airlines sometimes requires a long time waiting in queue and airline reservation over the telephone often requires dialing the customer care number of particular airline or travel agent and then selecting the complicated options and then waiting in queue to talk to the customer service representative of that company.

Booking online eliminates all this layers of difficultly and provides ease to customers to book ticket their anytime whether day or night and online reservation also provides the convenience of electronically check in for the flight sitting at home and can choose their seats in accordance to their comfort.

Security

Booking online provides security as compared to traditional method of booking through call centre and when purchasing tickets through telephone, a customer has to provide the bank card or credit card details and other sensitive information to the person we don’t know but online booking is far more secure than it as when booking the ticket online, only information essential for the transaction is collected over a secure connection.

Cost

When the ticket is purchased online or a reservation is done online, the booking process is handled by automation services due to which travel companies can pass the savings to customers in the form of special discounted rates, coupons as there is no need to pay salary to employees. And many discount airlines provides special online fares which are available to customers who book their tickets online.

Control

One of the most compelling advantages of online booking is Control. A passenger can not only see the flight arrangements, but can also select his seat and choose his meal. As online booking doesn’t require any interactions with travel agent so the customer can search for more possible options and search different airlines fares at once for the specific destination. A traveler can also book his hotel online by seeing all the available rooms and can also check the rooms with its competitor for the best available option.

“The Advantages of Online Booking | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/way_6167630_advantages-online-booking.html#ixzz14grTodas”

Airlines offer a range of services to passengers who book their tickets online like:

Airline credit cards: Many airlines offer airline credit cards like platinum and gold cards to their customers. These credit cards give additional services to the cardholders like excess baggage allowances, enrollment benefits and other privileges to cardholders.

Mobile phone information services: Many airlines use mobile phone to keep their customers updated. They send instant flight status, flight alert and schedule on mobile phones. Thus this helps the customers to know instantly about the delays and cancellations of flights.

Manage booking service: This online service enables the customers to provide their contact details and other information about their while booking their tickets online which can be later modified at any time, the modifications can be made as late as 24 hours before the departure date.

Mobile Ticketing services: Now tickets can also be booked using mobile phone internet anytime and anywhere. Payments can be made, manage bookings, cancellation of bookings and refunds of payments. All this are possible using mobile internet services.

Multi Journey: Some airlines also provide the option of breaking journey online. That means if a traveler is planning to tour another destination before reaching or returning to its destination, all the tickets can be booked at once.

Hotel bookings: Some airlines also provides the facility of booking hotels on their websites which can help the traveler save time in searching for hotel booking and traveler can also rely on the hotel booking on the website of airline as that hotels are the airline trusted hotels.

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The process of online booking is quite simple but there few circumstances where the customers can gets frustrated while searching for the best deal. This can happen due to the lack of knowledge of right place where to search for cheap tickets and book tickets. Sometimes it can be a bit tricky as some people just end up with jumping from one website to other which consumes a lot of time and this make it hard to search the best deal available. One other problem which customer might face is as the transactions is carried online, the customer is not dealing with the real person so the customer might not get much help or assistance needed but if the customer is dealing with the travel agents, they might give suggestion regarding upcoming deals or cheaper deals in near future.

To sum it up, the internet has completely changed the way the customers book their flights, buying tickets online has make life easier as the customer don’t have to go physically to the travel agent or airline office. Everything can be done at the comfort of the home and customers can also take advantage of the additional services offered by the airline companies exclusively for web. However searching for the ticket on the right website is of utmost important so that customer won’t end up in spending more time and still not getting the best deal available.

Referencing

“David J http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_J_Cook”

“http://www.articlesbase.com/flights-articles/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-buying-airline-tickets-online-447497.html#ixzz14spqtU1q”

“The Advantages of Online Booking | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/way_6167630_advantages-online-booking.html#ixzz14grTodas”

“http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Parinaz_Driver”