Abstract
Through online self-booking travel sites on the Web, consumers are offered great opportunities for convenient and inexpensive travel bookings. Nevertheless, they face certain problems and limitations in this respect: The booking process tends to be time-consuming and complicated, and the retrieved fares are often expensive. This research suggests that the most significant barriers to online bookings can be eliminated or reduced with a software agent approach. The paper presents the structure, behavior and the operating environment of a multi-channel software agent application, FareTracer, which has been designed to assist consumers in making their own travel reservations on the Web. Based on a dynamic modular design, the FareTracer can scan any number of pre-defined and ill-structured data sources on the Web to pick out and retrieve only the essential information in a matter of seconds/minutes.
Recommended Citation
Anckar, Bill; Olofsson, Svante; and Walden, Prikko, "Overcoming Online Booking Barriers with a Software Agent Approach" (2001). ECIS 2001 Proceedings. 20.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2001/20