Canadians Rely on the Internet When Booking Vacations

(EMAILWIRE.COM, June 19, 2007 ) Huntsville, Ontario -- A recent trend away from travel agents and towards the Internet, particularly directory sites, has made planning a vacation easier for many Canadians.Not too long ago, anyone contemplating a trip or holiday would turn to a professional travel agent to take care of all the details. A travel agent was the ultimate resource for information on travel, because they had access to all the brochures and booklets. The best agents kept up with all the latest travel trends and could be relied upon to know which vacation properties were clean and kept up and which ones were less than they claimed to be. A good travel agent would have probably stayed at a number of the vacation properties that they suggest, giving the customer a first-hand review of some holiday destinations. When it came time to book, the travel agent would take care of all he details. This was a mutually beneficial and quite satisfactory arrangement; however, the arrival of the Internet changed how many Canadians booked their holidays. Over the last few years, as the Internet has grown, so have the number of Web sites that deal exclusively with travel. There is so much travel related information out there that if you were to Google search the term “Canadian vacation” you would find over 5.6 million Web sites that related in some way to Canadian vacations. Of these sites, most are commercial businesses that are trying to sell a service or a product. There are some sites that are mostly informative, including government and tourism association sites. Travel and tourism blogs and message boards are other sources of information for consumers, although someone selling a product is often the Web site’s sponsor. With so much information out there, how does one sift through it in order to find their perfect vacation?Finding the perfect Canadian vacation can be easy. There is no need to spend hours surfing the Internet in order to find exactly what you are looking for, if you are very specific when doing a word search. Say that you are looking for a wonderful cottage resort in Muskoka that allows both children and dogs. By doing a word search for “Muskoka cottage resort children dogs”, only Web sites that fit your criteria would come up. That particular Google search will locate over 22 thousand possibilities; of those, generally the most relative sites would be those listed on the first three pages. One web site that comes up near the top when researching a variety of Ontario and Canadian resort and vacation terms is Cottage-Resort.com (http://www.cottage-resort.com). Cottage-Resort.com is an award-winning Ontario accommodation directory listing service that hosts over 250 subscriber hospitality properties including Ontario resorts, lodges, country inns, bed and breakfast properties, and cottage resorts. It provides a wealth of information that is constantly updated and is categorized in such a way that visitors to the site can easily match their exact vacation requirements to the property that most fits their needs. Cottage-Resort.com co-owner, Gord Bell states that, “We had been successfully marketing our own cottage resort property on the Internet for years. We found a strong demand for targeted information on vacation and hospitality properties, so we started the Cottage-Resort.com directory. We wanted our directory to be extremely viewer friendly, because we knew that people did not want to waste hours at the computer looking for the perfect resort package. At Cottage-Resort.com you will find almost anything, from deals on spa package getaways to the perfect location to hold a business conference. You can also find a lakeside cottage resort that specializes in muskie fishing or one that caters to the ATV crowd. There is even a last minute category.”While there is still a need for travel agents, their role over the past few years has clearly changed. With more and more Canadians using the Internet to research and book their holidays and vacations, travel agencies will be forced to compete with Internet entrepreneurs to keep their slice of the Canadian travel market.Cottage-Resort.com is a comprehensive directory for cottages, inns, lodges, and resorts throughout Canada. For more information, please visit Cottage-Resort.com or call Gord Bell 1-800-363-6047.###This press release was issued through GroupWeb EmailWire.Com. For more information on press release distribution, go to http://www.emailwire.com.

Kevin Dill

hillaryalane@yahoo.com