Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Exploiting power of the net for tourism

Many a times I am surprised by the amount of information available online today. Just 5 years back, I had to re-plan a trip because I had failed to find information about the place I wanted to visit. But the scenario has changed drastically in these intervening years. The tourism and travel industry had understood the potential of the unimaginable reach of the internet. No one will deny the value of having a website and tap the potential customers.

Take for example of a place named Corfu. I can bet that many of us have not even heard of the place. It is an island in Greece and a popular tourist destination. The 1981 James Bond movie ‘For Your Eyes Only’ was filmed in this Greek island on the Ionian Sea. But I was surprised to find the no. of sites catering exclusively to Corfu, hitherto unknown to many, including me. I picked one of the sites Fantastic Greece and found that Corfu is a popular place with many attractions. Useful information is presented on the page in a simple, clean and uncluttered way. I like such uncluttered WebPages devoid of animations and distractions.

Anyway, this was just to be bemused at the power of the net. Such information helps one choose peaceful destinations that is not on the radar of general tourist. This is one of the reasons why the internet continues to fascinate me.