Overcoming Online Booking Barriers with a Software Agent Approach

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.

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