iMedia: Travel Buying Has Changed Forever

The travel advertising sector is forever changed, now that airlines can post last minute fairs and save money by reaching better targeted people online, rather than running expensive placements in big city newspapers. The human travel agents who once helped travelers plan vacations are going the way of elevator attendants, squeezed out of the market by people who want to press their own buttons. A Dynamic Logic executive writes in iMedia that not only are more people going online to buy travel (comScore figures consistently put travel spending online over $1 billion per week), but travel advertising seems to have a greater effect online than other categories of online ads, especially rich media ones.