New Breed of Web Sites Streamlines Trip Planning

To travelers weary of navigating the Internet’s increasingly convoluted channels in search of the perfect getaway, they’re a welcome opportunity to let an expert do the heavy lifting.

To travel agents worried about being cut out of a booming online market, they’re potentially cost-effective springboards for wooing new business.

But the jury is still out on whether a new breed of matchmaker Web sites aimed at getting travel buyers and sellers together winds up producing more happy marriages or awkward, never-to-be-consummated dates.

Some of these shop-by-request sites, such as the American Society of Travel Agents’ Trip Request Service (https://www.astanet.com/trip) and Tripquote.com (https://www.tripquote.com), are focused solely on travel. Several others, such as Respond.com (https://www.respond.com), iWant.com (https://www.iwant.com), Imandi.com (https://www.imandi.com), eWanted.com (https://www.ewanted.com) and MyGeek.com (https://www.mygeek.com), incorporate cruises, airline tickets, lodgings and vacation packages into a broader product mix.

Most follow a similar procedure: Would-be travelers locate the appropriate category and submit a request online, which might be anything from a romantic B&B; in San Francisco to a tented safari in Botswana. The site then posts or passes the request along to its network of travel agents, who typically respond by e-mail or within a password-protected area of the matchmaker site if they have a suitable price or trip. The buyer contacts the seller for more information, and a theoretical deal is forged--without the hassles of search engines, name-your-own-price auctions or travel sites that merely offer generic packages.

Matchmaker sites can be “a great steppingstone” for the majority of Internet travelers who do research but are leery of purchasing online, says Krista Pappas of Gomez Advisors, a Lincoln, Mass., e-commerce firm that rates travel-related Web sites.

The sites are most helpful for cruises, international flights, honeymoons and other types of complex travel “where expertise matters,” adds Daniel Saul of Smarter Living (https://www.smarterliving.com). The discount travel site recently forged a deal with Iwant.com, a shop-by-request site that also has a marketing arrangement with Cruise Lines International Assn. (CLIA), which has more than 20,000 travel agent members.

Respond.com says its 55 travel categories generate more consumer requests than any others on the site, with each travel query receiving an average of three to five replies from Respond.com’s network of about 500 travel agents.

But the sites don’t always deliver, either for travelers or the agents trying to sell trips. Some agents have complained that their sales conversion rate is minuscule, partly because many sites don’t require travelers to be specific about price and other details. As for travelers, “one of the key shortfalls is that you don’t always get what you ask for,” says Pappas of Gomez Advisors.

Case in point: I received more than a dozen prompt responses after querying several sites requesting quotes for air fare for two from Washington, D.C., to Madrid in mid-October and an accompanying car rental for 10 days. While no would-be seller mentioned a price for the car rental, air fare quotes ranged from $615 to $657 per person, plus tax. That compares favorably with air fares as low as $612 per person I found through online discounter TISS (https://www.tiss .com).

Yet I also got several generic responses that merely directed me to the seller’s own Web site--and annoying e-mails reminding me to “act quickly” on the offers I’d already received.

Electronic Explorer appears the second Sunday of every month. Laura Bly welcomes comments and questions; her e-mail address is LSBly@aol.com.