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(c) Elliott Publishing.

So Long, ITN
Kirby's Korner · February 25, 2000

Someone flicked the switch late last week.

With that flick, the oldest ongoing consumer-based reservation system on the Web closed its doors forever. Less than five years after it started handling reservations, Internet Travel Network was dead.

Online enthusiasts talk of the Web moving in dog years -- with changes coming at seven times the speed of the real world. ITN's history shows these enthusiasts are pessimistic. Under the "dog years" formula, ITN was not yet 35, a young age for something so vital to die.

The folks behind the ITN Web site will argue with a death metaphor. We're not dead, they'll say, we've metamorphosized. We were a halting caterpillar that has become a graceful butterfly.

There's truth to that argument. The company that started as Internet Travel Network is now called GetThere.com and is concentrating on a business-to-business ethic. It is among the largest creators of corporate travel management tools, and it provides the reservation system for a hundred Web sites.

The new approach "is the way we should be going," ITN co-founder Bruce Yoxsimer told me this week.

Last November it had a successful public stock offering, with an asking price of $16; it traded at $24.50 at the end of the first day. (The stock now trades in the $27-$30 range.)

The change in business philosophy is not a new idea for the company. It began to move to a back-end support role by 1997, well before it changed its name.

The reasons for the change are clear. ITN faced serious problems marketing its consumer-direct services, competing with Web sites that had deeper pockets (Travelocity.com, majority-owned by American Airlines' sister company Sabre; Expedia.com, still majority-owned by Microsoft), had better distribution deals (Preview Travel, itself soon to be purchased by Travelocity), or were happy with a small but profitable place in the online travel industry (1travel.com; TravelNow).

Nevertheless, I shed a tear for the demise of the consumer booking service that started it all.

Late last week, Web users who tried to reach ITN were transferred to an American Express travel and entertainment page. GetThere still handles the technology and even sends out the tickets, but American Express gets the credit.

(The arrangement is part of a deal between GetThere and American Express, announced in September, in which American Express invested in the smaller technology company.)

We'll never again see the slick, quick interface at ITN that allowed travelers to make reservations with a minimum amount of fuss. We'll never again see the clever logo of the site, which, if you looked closely, incorporated its trademark claim within the artwork itself.

(A very small version of the logo is still available for viewing on the home page of the GetThere Web site, but it is too small to reveal how clever it is.)

I may be the only person around to mourn ITN's passing. Even employees who have been there since the beginning won't mind the changes. They have stock options in GetThere!

But I have a history with the company. The first story in the first issue of my newsletter, Interactive Travel Report, was about ITN going into "alpha-testing." The second issue revealed that visitors could finally make reservations.

I've followed the company's ups and downs. I named co-founders Yoxsimer and Dan Whaley "Persons of the Year" in interactive travel for 1997. I perhaps breached journalistic ethics and kept secret an investment deal ITN had arranged when the company's chairman pleaded with me, telling me it would ruin the firm. With Ticked.com partner Chris Elliott, then an Interactive Travel Report columnist, I delved into the health of one executive and, I suspect, was partially responsible for another executive "seeking other challenges."

We won't mention drunken drives down Chicago freeways.

Even without this history, eliminating ITN's consumer reservation service would make me sad. It's always an unhappy day when a progenitor dies.

Rest in peace, ITN.

David Kirby is the editor of Interactive Travel Report. His column appears on Friday. You can reach him at david@ticked.com.