A pioneer in the online travel-booking business, Travelocity.com is an award-winning, full-service travel agency that serves as a one-stop shop for consumers looking to price and book flights, trains, hotels, rental cars, cruises, local attractions and full vacation packages. Travelocity searches for the lowest fares from hundreds of airlines and books hotel rooms through its affiliation with some 17,000 hotels. The site regularly offers special sales and promotions, as well as last-minute offerings. Numerous other bells and whistles provide added value.
The Basics
The features on this comprehensive site are designed to make travel planning painless. Travelocity's patented Flight Navigator technology brings up scores of flights, listing fares per person, arrival and departure times, trip lengths, the number of tickets left at that price, onboard amenities, and more. The site also suggests a number of money-saving alternatives, including alternate airports and dates, packages, and other better-value deals. For hotels, each listing includes an overview, a list of features, photos, Travelocity star ratings, and guest reviews. You can book last-minute deals for trips departing the same day or up to two weeks away.
Other Major Services
- ExperienceFinder: A relatively new planning tool that allows users to create their dream vacations.
- FareWatcher Plus: Lets you track airfares for up to 10 destinations over a given period of time.
- TotalPrice: Promising no hidden fees, this feature promises full-price quotes on rental cars.
- Seat Maps/Intellideck Maps: Choose your plane seat with Travelocity's detailed seat maps, or your cruise-ship cabin with the site's Intellideck Maps.
- Travel content: A series of travel tips and advice, as well as articles on a wide range of destinations, are provided by a team of in-house and freelance writers. Frommer's, the largest travel-guidebook publisher in North America, has also supplied a number of mini-guides to some of the more popular travel spots.
- RoadTrip Wizard: Another new tool that helps consumers plan road trips, including places to stay, eat, and shop.
- Globe Aware: Travelocity now profiles opportunities for "voluntourism" in a variety of countries.
- 24-Hour customer support: A toll-free number connects customers to one of the company's 1,000 live travel professionals.
A Few Competitors
Expedia.com is one of the world's largest full-service online travel agencies, assisting some 25 million customers per month. Orbitz.com is another popular full-service online travel agency that provides similar services.
What Makes Travelocity Noteworthy
For nine years in a row, from 1997 until 2006, Travelocity was named the world's leading online travel site at the World Travel Awards. It has developed a brand that's recognized around the world. (It can't hurt that the Travelocity mascot, the Roaming Gnome, has been featured in the popular TV reality show The Amazing Race.) Customer service is a priority: There is a seven-point "Travelocity Customer Bill of Rights" pledging the company's commitment and guaranteeing that "you'll never roam alone." The company also guarantees that if you find a qualifying lower rate for travel within 24 hours of booking with Travelocity, it will not only refund the difference between what you paid and the lower price, but you'll get $50 off any future travel.
A Brief History
The first website to allow consumers to search fares and reserve and book flights online, Travelocity was created in 1996 by the world's largest travel-agent reservation system, Sabre Holdings Corporation, which was a division of American Airlines' parent company, AMR. It is currently the largest online agency in Europe and the second-largest online agency in the United States. Under the Travelocity umbrella are Travelocity Business and a number of other brands, including Lastminute.com, Zuji.com, All-Hotels.com, IgoUgo.com and HolidayAutos.com.
Ownership
Travelocity is still owned by Sabre Holdings Corporation, which also owns the Sabre Travel Network and Sabre Airline Solutions. Travelocity and the other Sabre companies are headquartered at 3150 Sabre Drive, Southlake, Tex., 76092.
