Simple Tips For Finding Better Travel Deals

It is possible to find better travel deals by better understanding the complex airline industry. Airlines sell tens of thousands of tickets online every day of course. They study the buying habits of their customers, to figure out how to get the maximum price while remaining competitive. The competition created by online travel sites is to our advantage, but we should understand how they operate.The airlines adjust their ticket prices from one day to the next and even over the course of hours in a day. You are more likely to find the best travel deals when the airline is particularly motivated to grab that purchase. They want to make sure their planes are full, and the sooner they can do that the better. There is motivation to reduce the risk of partially empty planes.Buying tickets with as much advance notice as possible, many days or weeks before the day of travel for example, reduces the risk to the airline and they will tend to reward you with lower prices. This is not always possible, but worth keeping in mind whenever it is reasonable to do so.If you are looking online at a time of day when many others are also searching, the companies may be less motivated to put out a great travel deal, since they are busily filling up planes with all the online business. Why put out the best prices when people are buying anyway? It is a matter of supply and demand to some extent. The prime time to avoid would be from say 8 to 6 during the daytime, especially during the week.On the one hand, booking early can save money, as discussed above. However, last-minute reservations occasionally can find turn up a great deal. Go ahead and make the early purchase, since it is important to actually get the desired flight. Then shortly before the day of travel, check back with the airline on those flights. If they report lower last-minute travel deals, give them a call. It may be possible to obtain at least some of the difference between the current price and what you paid before.As part of the online search process, first look for travel deals at the major third-party websites like Priceline or Expedia. As a rule, they will offer very similar pricing for the same ticket on the same day. The key is whether one website or the other can find specials and clever combinations of flights to offer a better price. By the way, Kayak is a good website because it permits the visitor to quickly compare several sites quickly and conveniently. Once you know what the travel websites can offer, you can then move over to the airline website for the flight of interest, and make sure there is not a better price offered on the official site.Don't give up on using a travel agent for some vacation trips. They likely will not provide the cheapest price for a simple trip. However, a travel agent often can find great travel deals that non-professionals can't dig up. This can be especially useful on a multi-leg vacation with numerous flights and hotels.The same can be true with international travel. In checking with an experienced travel agent, make sure they know that finding the best possible pricing is a big part of the reason you are using them; put a little bit of pressure on them to earn their fee. They can be very helpful in working out the details of a complex trip and can find money saving travel deals at the same time.Finally, here are two simple observations that might be helpful. Realize the difference between a direct flight (where there is no change of plane, but there could be intermediate stops before the final destination) and a nonstop flight. Also, whenever possible try and stay over a Saturday night; this is pretty well-known wisdom but it still applies.

J. Michael Key writes on a variety of topics, with an emphasis on travel and vacation opportunities. For more information about saving on your next vacation visit http://www.travel--deals.net

Travel Deals.

Future looks good for UK online lodging industry

London, UK - January 2003 - Britain is set to see a dramatic increase in the number of hotel reservations made on the Internet during the coming year. Savvy tourists are abandoning traditional shopping channels in favor of the Net when booking hotel rooms, hostels and vacation rentals. 2003 is likely to show a significant rise in online bookings thanks to recent changes in European travel shopping habits and Internet technologies. Holidaymakers throughout Europe are showing a greater preference for booking travel online. Recent studies have identified budget airlines as being a major cause of this shift in buyer behavior. European budget carriers, which include EasyJet, Ryanair, Buzz, Virgin Express, Bmibaby and MyTravelLite now account for approximately 8 million passengers a year. Nearly all of these airlines use the Internet to minimize overheads. In an effort to reduce distribution costs, passengers are encouraged to book online. Approximately 90% of European budget airline bookings now come from the Internet. This is a boon to online lodging suppliers. A traveler who shops on the Net for his airline ticket has a strong tendency to make a hotel reservation the same way. The UK lodging industry receives the majority of reservations from neighboring European countries. According to research conducted last year, the overall number of Europeans shopping online has shown a steady increase. During the final quarter of 2002, Europeans spent an estimated $15.77 billion on goods and services online. Research conducted by GartnerG2 states that this figure is 74.7 percent more than the preceding year. The online hotel reservation sector is expected to reap high returns due to this growth in European e-purchases. Travelers are beginning to enjoy the level of flexibility and control offered by the Internet and would rather invest an evening in surfing for the right hotel rather than entrust their holiday plans to traditional travel agents. London is the best-positioned market within the UK to take advantage of these changes in the hotel reservation marketplace. The city is popular as both a leisure destination and a center for trade and commerce. It attracts a large number of travelers with very diverse lodging needs. This translates into many lucrative niche consumer travel groups. Many hospitality professionals are setting up niche third-party websites that target each of these customer segments (e.g. budget accommodation for student travelers, long stay apartments, disability-friendly hotels). These niche websites lure customers by offering a good selection of inventory that best suits their target clientele, competitive rates, helpful information and secure online real-time reservation capabilities.RoomsNet International " Market Research UnitRoomsNet International is a global network of e-lodging reservation specialists. RoomsNet enables accommodation agents, event managers, hospitality professional, tour operators, hotel reservation call-center agencies and entrepreneurs to setup niche online reservation sites and cater to the growing demands of the online lodging industry.

Rajacraft.com, Online Marketplace for export quality Indonesian Arts & Crafts products

Jakarta, June 8, 2001: indo.com today proudly announces the launch of RajaCraft.com, a B2B marketplace website to promote export trade of Indonesian arts and crafts products. Rajacraft is a marketplace portal, designed to be the meeting place for buyers and sellers of export quality Indonesian arts and crafts products. Today, Rajacraft.com will formally launch the marketplace in a three-way grand launch event with MuseumNasional.org and IndonesianHeritage.com to be held at Museum National in Jakarta. The 3-way launch is targeted to raise awareness of these three websites that are excellent sources of information on Indonesian culture, heritage and craft. The Museum is home to the crafts of yesterday, the Indonesian Heritage encyclopedia is an excellent source of information and RajaCraft.com is home to the crafts of today. All websites are now online and accessible to the Internet community.At RajaCraft.com, we have developed a proprietary Internet-base marketplace application which gives producers of arts and crafts products in Indonesia access to a global network of buyers. With over 60 suppliers of arts and crafts products, Rajacraft.com is a marketplace with comprehensive source of information on qualified suppliers of export quality product, said Dennis Walker, Technical Adviser of Rajacraft.com.As a web-based marketplace, Rajacraft.com deploys its proprietary cataloging, inquiry management and online ordering technology to facilitate trading business processes. Sellers can create smart catalogues of products that they are offering, enabling buyers to quickly search for products. This new cataloging technology coupled with the inquiry management and ordering features will simplify the ordering process and lead to more export transactions in arts and craft products. All of these technologies are available online at Rajacraft.com's website (www.rajacraft.com).When it comes to market response to Rajacraft.com, Dennis and his team can be proud of their site. Even during development stage, both suppliers and buyers were eager to use the marketplace as indicated by steady growth in supplier membership applications and buyer inquiries on the system. Many inquiries come from buyers from all over the world. Mr. Way, an Australian retailer, said in his e-mail to Rajacraft.com, I am very interested in importing arts & crafts, and some furniture. I found your website very informative and well set up. I would appreciate a quote on 20 foot containers shipping costs with your choice of freight forwarders to Sydney. Today, Rajacraft.com had already finalized several B2B transactions through the marketplace. The first transaction was from an American buyer with some very unique requirements, which was fulfilled from sourcing and negotiation with quality control and export. The biggest vote of confidence for our e-marketplace platform is just happened recently. Rajacraft.com is completing a purchase order from Disney World International at Florida.Our next important milestone is to promote the Rajacraft.com marketplace in the international community for giftware an home accessory merchandise, the biggest global market for arts and crafts products. One event on our agenda, scheduled for July 14 to 18, 2001, will be the Atlanta International Gift & Home Accessories Show in Atlanta, Georgia in the United State. This is one of the most important trade events in the world for arts and crafts products, with over 50,000 buyers around the world attending. We will have a booth in the exhibition to promote our marketplace as a sourcing solution for the incredible range of Indonesian arts and crafts products offered by our member vendors. This is a huge benefit to our member vendors in terms of international market access and global promotion. It takes a significant marketing and promotion budget to participate in such an event and our member vendors can take full advantage of this by joining the marketplace at a very affordable subscription fee, explained Dennis. About Rajacraft.comRajacraft.com is a business unit of indo.com (http://www.indo.com). Established since 1995, indo.com, or more popularly known as Bali Online, is the leader of Internet travel to Bali and Indonesia. Deeply enmeshed in the Internet, indo.com enjoys over 17,000 links from other sites pointing to its site, from the world's largest sites like America Online as well as from the biggest travel companies like American Express and SABRE of American Airlines. indo.com has a large number of audience, accumulating to over 10 million people, generating hits around 12.5 million per month and reservation requests amounting to 60,000 room nights in 2000. Today, along with the development in tourism industry, many of the most popular destinations for International travelers just happen to be the major arts & crafts centers of Indonesia; therefore the online marketplace concept is a logical extension of the travel business. And the vision of our new online marketplace concept called RajaCraft.com, is to be the most comprehensive and authoritative online trading community for Indonesian arts & crafts product in the International market. For additional information on Rajacraft.com or the services that they offer, visit their Web site at http://www.rajacraft.com or call Franky at (62-21) 798-4290.