Internet Growth and Competitive Differentiation: On-line Travel Agencies

Introduction
Travel ranks as the leading category of on-line transactions by U.S. consumers (Pappas, 2001). According to James V. Delong, a senior fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Project on Technology, "there are more than 33,000 travel agencies, ranging from one-person shops to giant American Express, and 270 of them are online" (p. 2). A study by Bear Stearns suggests that only 200 on-line travel sites will still be in existence by 2005 of which Expedia.com, Travelocity and Priceline.com will lead the market (Greenberg, Regan, 2001).
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