Home |
Book Reviews |
NetTravel Review
Planning a vacation? Going on a business trip? Use the internet. An excellent primer that documents how travel information can be found online, NetTravel: How Travelers Use the Internet (Songline Studios, 1997) is a useful resource for novice and veteran internet users alike.
NetTravel's author Michael Shapiro is a skilled journalist and internet "content producer" working with online sites CNET (http://www.cnet.com/) and previously with Web Review (http://www.webreview.com). The text is lively as the author chooses not to write down to his audience or explain these concepts in an indecipherable jargon favored by so many internet writers.
To give the book its greatest test, I decided to share this book with my parents, fairly new owners of a Mac. They're just learning internet basics. Within minutes mom found the section on freighter cruises - a topic I never suspected my parents my parents might contemplate. Within the hour they were surfing the web and checking the itineraries and prices.
Want to plan the ultimate vacation or ready for adventure travel? These topics are well-covered in NetTravel. Chapters highlight how the internet excels with providing background on particular destinations or modes of travel. Hotel rooms and services can be booked in advance and there are often great deals that can be located easily on the web.
While I may be an expert at using websites and resources I'm familiar with, the chapter "Room and Board" led me by the hand to a variety of websites, including the easy-to-use Hotel Guide (http://www.hotelguide.ch) and Hotel Anywhere (http://www.hotelanywhere.com). While I couldn't make reservations online, I did find the basic info and phone numbers and I made my reservations accordingly.
Shapiro observes that while hotel chains may have a specific site, travelers want to browse among their options in a particular city or region. The Hotel Guide website allows searches by region, preferences and price. You can even search for specific amenities (spas, conference facilities, laundry services, etc.).
The internet is more than the sum of its websites, and the author does a good job of explaining the use of newsgroups and mailing lists. The author offers excellent advice, "lurk then leap," he suggests and explains how to obtain a newgroup's FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) which offers answers that can help a newcomer get up to speed more quickly.
Unlike the other sections that promote websites and online newsletters, this section does not have the variety of examples, which would be helpful in explaining not only how the newgroups function but how they differ from more static pages on the net.
The only shortcoming of the book is that is in writing for the travel consumer, Shapiro shies away from writing about the tremendous changes within the industry itself. Yes, it does examine how travel agents use the net - labeled "transforming crisis into opportunity." But it's been my experience than most agents are very frightened of the net.
Try sending email requests to a few agents and see how many respond in a prompt and thoughtful manner. It's as if so many of these individuals and companies perfected faxing that they do not wish to engage in something as "new" as email. (For more along that line, check out Elizabeth Malek-Zadeh's article Marketing Ecotourism to Travel Agents.)
NetTravel is a top-notch snapshot of the web as it exists in 1998. No doubt it will remain a timely and useful guide. Hopefully the book will be updated in a second edition. To learn more about the book, see its page in the O'Reilly/Songline online catalog : http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/nettravel.
To order NetTravel: How Travelers Use the Internet, click here. You can contact the author via email at shapiro@sonic.net.
Ron Mader writes frequently about internet use in the Americas. He hosts the Planeta.com: website: http://www.planeta.com and is author of the Mexico: Adventures in Nature guidebook.
Home |
About |
Advertise! |
Books |
Central America |
Ecotourism |
Headlines
Learn Spanish |
Mexico |
Media |
Site Map |
South America |
World Travel |
Updates