ONLINE RESERVATIONS
Shelley King deals in what some in the industry call "complex travel." The Norwood, Massachusetts, agent plots vacation itineraries that go well beyond basic car, hotel, and round-trip air reservations - instead they might entail an anthropological trek across the Himalayas or a tour of the nation's haunted houses. For the latter, she even gives the following advice: The best times to spot specters are at dawn and at dusk. And if you want to take a ghost's photo, make sure to use high-speed film.
The complex niche is particularly well suited to conducting business online because it draws information from disparate sources. King is among more than 1,500 specialists featured on eGulliver.com. The Atlanta-based site, which launched in September 1999, serves some 300 travelers a month, with the average trip running about $4,500.
Visitors to eGulliver can customize their plans according to activity (such as ecotourism or religious pilgrimage), destination, lifestyle, or special needs. Or they can simply fill out a form explaining what they're looking for and let the company track down the right service. Users are guaranteed a response within 24 hours and are encouraged to rate their specialist after the fact.
Complex travel has caught the attention of the big Internet travel players. By April 1, eGulliver's network of agents will be featured on Expedia, which is also taking an equity position in the specialty site. Travelocity has a deal with luxury travel site Virtuoso that pairs its customers and Virtuoso agents.
Sometimes, complex travel requests can be fairly, well, complex. One eGulliver patron needed to travel by boat with her dog, which had cancer, from Luxembourg to Detroit. "We didn't have a disabled dog category, but we found an agent who had some cruise and freight options," says Deslie Webb, the firm's CEO and cofounder.
Gordon LaGrow, a Quincy, Massachusetts-based agent, credits eGulliver with connecting him to clients that he would not have found otherwise. LaGrow specializes in trips for elderly and disabled vacationers, so he needs to know which cruise ships and overseas ports are wheelchair accessible. "That's information that travelers aren't going to get from most big, online booking sites," says LaGrow. "There's nothing worse than sending a client on a cruise and they can't get off the ship."
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