The risks of travel online booking / Nur Shanajeeha Shamsuddin

Travel online booking brings more risks to the tourism and hospitality industry. Nowadays, the world has faced a rapid growth in the use of Internet where people around the world can easily access information and making reservations online (Wong & Law, 2005). This booking method has been widely used recently in this world of Information Technology (Amirrudin Kamsin, 2005). Many companies have implemented this method on their commercial websites. Online booking is a convenient way of finding and booking your flights over the internet. For example, by using Emirates online services customers can build an itinerary to suit their travel plans and request a particular seat, special meal, or service pay online by credit card using our secure server. Companies make e-booking as an investment that helps them in the scope of expanding their market leadership. By having the online booking or reservation system, it will lead to superior control over the reservation process and operation with greater accuracy and thus also helps to reduce errors due to conventional manual processing. (Amirrudin Kamsin, 2005). A travel online booking allows customers to specify their travel requirements such as the city of departure, destination, departure date, return date and class of travel and accommodations. Once this information is received, the travel online booking will offer a list of available air tickets, hotels, and excursions which the customers can make bookings. Advancements in internet technology and its wide availability have radically altered the means by which and how customers select hotel accommodations, packages for travel and booking transportation services. Thus, the hotel industry is placing greater emphasis on online booking management ( Xie et al., 2011 ).