It was encouraging to read the articles encouraging agents to set up Web sites (Travel Weekly, August 23). Travel and the Internet go very well together.
When we set up Cheapflights.com in 1996, most agents (with the exception of Air Tickets Direct) told us that there was no future in the Internet. But we now get more than 4m page requests a month!
However, let me offer a word of warning. The articles, not surprisingly, encouraged agents to include e-mail on their sites. This is a logical thing to do, but be aware that the e-mails may arrive in huge numbers and that they have a lower conversion-rate than telephone calls.
Either include e-mail, and be sure you can service it professionally, or leave it out. If not, your brand name will suffer. We get many complaints from our viewers about a minority of our advertising agents who are very slow to answer their e-mails.
John Hatt, www.cheapflights.com, Battersea, London