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Published in Interactive Travel Report
February 18, 1999
Web site looks to business-to-business trends
A year-old Web site aimed at providing assistance to travel
agents has launched several initiatives to keep travel agents in closer
contact with travel suppliers.
PositiveSpace.com, operated by Travel Technology &
Magic, Evanston Ill., is building a business based on business-to-business
relationships. Except for corporate travel management tools, the travel
industry has not been quick to pick up on business-to-business relationships
online, even though it has become a major part of online services in other
fields.
Greg Merkley, president of Travel Technology & Magic, told ITR he has
seen figures showing business-to-business transactions represent 80 percent
of online commerce. "I think the travel industry will wake up to that,"
he said. "We'd like to be in that space and be providing that service."
PositiveSpace offers a free basic listing on its Web site
to travel suppliers, with the goal of creating a complete and viable resource
for travel agents. Suppliers can enhance for a fee their listings by, for
example, providing a password-protected area for travel agents or by listing
their services in several places throughout the Web site.
Merkley said revenue for PositiveSpace comes from marketing
relationships with suppliers who want to reach the travel industry through
marketing their services, sponsorships, promoting contests, or providing
direct e-mail to travel agents.
Travel Technology & Magic took over PositiveSpace,
then known as Hyde's Travel Agent Resource and based in Vancouver, British
Columbia, in March 1998. The company changed the name of the Web site in
April 1998, after a contest.
The site currently has 3,500 registered travel professionals.
Eighty-five percent are travel agents, and others are suppliers and related
professionals.
Merkley called "surprising" how much effort is
required to get travel suppliers to use interactive media to reach travel
agents. Suppliers have been focused on the Internet as a consumer medium,
he said, and some also fear that travel agents themselves are not yet using
the new medium.
The Web site consists primarily of an online directory.
PositiveSpace also offers a twice-monthly newsletter with information, question
and answer services, and educational materials, among other services.
It also offers a new service, PS Inform, a series of between
four and six e-mail messages sent each day to subscribers. The e-mail messages
contain quick bits of information important to travel agency clients, including
news of strikes, weather and related information.
Merkley said PositiveSpace is not charging for this information, although
the e-mail messages can be sponsored.
Merkley said that PS Inform messages are superior to competing
message services because they provide both timely and quick-to-read information,
along with imbedded links to the source of the information, so travel agents
can quickly get more detail and a deeper context.
Merkley 847-869-1551
PositiveSpace
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