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Dangerous Sites
Err Travel · April 18, 2000

If there is any business that has seen itself turned upside down by the Internet, it is the travel business.

Seems like everybody is selling travel services or products. Certainly every Internet portal is just a click away from "travel services." So it's not surprising that Gomez Advisors keeps tabs on the 22 most popular Internet travel agencies, evaluating them against five criteria: ease of use, customer confidence, on-site resources, and relationship services.

Notably absent, at least from my perspective, is a criterion of security resources. Into this gap, I now jump.

Here is the Err Travel rating of Gomez's top ten Internet travel agencies.

To evaluate the sites, I looked for security information about Costa Rica, where I am planning a winter trip. Granted, Costa Rica is not a particularly dangerous place, particularly when compared to its neighbors - heck, that's why I chose it - but it provides a standard to rate the sites.

I assigned a score of 0 to 10 for each agency. A score of "0" means that no security information or links to security information were found on the site. A score of "10" means that the site offers a complete suite of information about, and/or links to relevant and current travel security information. The results:

Agent: Uniglobe.com

Score: 4+

Security content: Clicking on the "Tools" tab on Uniglobe's home page, then another click on "Resources" delivered me to the U.S. State Department's warnings. This site got a little higher score than Expedia (see below) because I got to the State Department information in one fewer click, and the information was formatted the same as the rest of the site.

Agent: Expedia

Score: 4

Security content: Four clicks to the U.S. State Department's Travel Warnings & Consular Information Sheets. (Note: Only one click to a page called "Best Places" and another click to an adventure piece on Costa Rica.)

Agent: Trip.com

Score: 2

Security content: Information supplied by leisureplanet.com listed two skinny paragraphs with these pointers: (1) there is theft in Costa Rica and (2) women not in the company of a male companion may hear a few lewd remarks.

On the other hand, I gave this site extra credit for addressing issues of safety through Julie Moline's periodic Road Rash column.

Agent: Preview Travel

Score: 1

Security content: There is one paragraph, provided by Fodor's, that mentioned that travel advisories can be obtained from the U.S. State Department via phone, fax, or mail. No links to that information were provided.

Agent: 1travel.com

Score: 0

Security content: None. Just a little something about health from Columbus Publishing.

Agent: Internet Travel Network

Score: 0

Security content: Nothing.

Agent: Lowestfare.com

Score: 0

Security content: This site doesn't offer reservations for Costa Rica, so I substituted Jamaica, which is a destination that it does offer. Nevertheless, I got zip.

Agent: Travelocity

Score: 0

Security content: Zero. Like 1travel.com, Travelocity uses content from Columbus Publishing which does include some stuff on health.

Agent: Travelscape.com

Score: 0

Security content: Travelscape, like Lowestfare.com, doesn't offer reservations for Costa Rica. Again substituting Jamaica, I found nothing.

Agent: Yahoo Travel

Score: 0

Security content: Nada.

What didn't surprised me by these results were the low scores that some of these sites earned. After all, the companies operating these Web sites are in the business of booking travel, not dishing out information that might distract from that focus.

What did surprise me was that so many of the sites made not even a mention of safety and security. I would have thought that in the highly competitive market of online travel, where brand loyalty is all but non-existent, that these guys would be looking for unique ways differentiate themselves from their considerable competition and to add value to their sites.

Guess I thought wrong.

Dr. Terry Riley is a psychologist and travel security authority. His column appears on Wednesdays. He is author of the popular book Travel Can Be Murder. Visit his site at http://www.appliedpsychology.com or e-mail him at terry@ticked.com.