In online travel, word of mouse is king

USA Today reports in this article and it’s usually a pretty good bet that when a mass market paper reports on anything “new” on the web it’s usually on the way to be pretty well established market behavior or a fact.

I don’t think anyone can seriously doubt any longer that user generated content has an increasingly significant influence on travel decisions. The travel sites trying to capitalize on this are growing like mushrooms and we might even be in some new bubble territory. Most of them are generating revenue from advertising and maybe some transaction fee.

As in web 1.0 there will remain a number of winners that will make the travel research, planning and buying experience a more pleasant one than what we have today. Just in time as my next post will show!

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