Revisiting "success stories" in electronic commerce (2 of 57)

In our 1999 report "Success Stories in Electronic Commerce", we included two Australian e-commerce sites: Travel.com.au and Lowes-Manhattan. Here, I shall deal with what happened to Travel.com.au after the report.

Travel.com.au, an online travel agent, was formed in 1997 by two traditional travel agents and was listed on the Australian bourse in 1999. Today it is one of the most visited non-Airline travel websites. Still, the company's revenue is miniscure compared to its major offline competitors and is trading at a loss most of the time.

From my own experience as a traveller who rely heavily on the Internet to "structure" my trips, I often find comprehensive travel agents such as Travel.com.au largely irrelevant. For travel research, there are specific information and forum sites. Most airlines and hotels deal directly with online customers. Then there are also sites which specialise in hotel booking only. In a sense, Travel.com.au is like a travel department store, squeezed by the specialist stores in a shopping mall.

I doubt whether Travel.com.au, or even its bigger brothers in the US and the UK, will ever achieve sustained profitability.