Reliable Sources Are we finally gonna get some useful travel information out of the Web?
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Where do you turn for reliable information about a destination?If you're a traveler, the Internet is generally the last placeto look. Not only are many travel sites difficult to navigate,incomplete and confusing, but they're often also tainted bycommercial and political interests.
All that is changing, though, as Web sites that collectinformation for the corporate traveler come of age, promising roadwar-riors targeted data without the fuss of surfing around.
One of these pioneers is Weissmann Travel Reports. Sold bycorporate travel agencies as part of some trip packages,Weissman's data is difficult to find elsewhere online. If yourtravel agent isn't offering these irreverently written andthorough reports on such things as shopping, dining, weather andetiquette, they're worth asking for.
Another early entrant into this niche is Ontheroad.com. If oneof the 25 cities Ontheroad. com works with is on your itinerary,the company will send you a schedule of events for the daysyou'll be there, give you details on restaurants appropriatefor entertaining clients and tell you about conferences being heldin town. The service is deliverable on the Web or via e-mail andpersonal digital assistant.
The latest resource for business travelers is iJet Travel Intelligence, which launchesthis month. IJet pulls together data about your trip-includingsecurity information, weather data, trip delays and healthalerts-and sends it to you via -mail or to your personal digitalassistant. Unlike Ontheroad.com and Weissmann, iJet doesn'tserve up subjective information about a place, but rather directsyou to where you can find the facts necessary to cope with anyproblem you might face when you're traveling.
Some of the "old dogs" in information Web sites havealso learned new tricks. PerAnnum's City Directory software, for example, is nowavailable for the Palm platform. The Manhattan version alonefeatures more than 500 restaurants, 100 hotels and 600 shops. Theyearly subscription fee of $20 makes it a bargain for busyentrepreneurs who don't want to wrestle with a phone book whenthey're out traveling, and updates can be downloaded from theWeb site.
Christopher Elliott is a writer in Annapolis, Maryland.Contact him at www.elliott.org.
