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  3. Penny-pinching consumers and fierce price wars are bad news for the travel industry. Bad, that is, for everyone except the boomi

Penny-pinching consumers and fierce price wars are bad news for the travel industry. Bad, that is, for everyone except the boomi

admin2010-02-22  69
问题     Penny-pinching consumers and fierce price wars are bad news for the travel industry. Bad, that is, for everyone except the booming on line travel giants. Consider the sharp rebound of such on-line players as Travelocity and Expedia. While they suffered in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, with bookings off as much as 70% in the weeks that followed, business has snapped back. "The speed with which those businesses bounced back surprised even the people most bullish about the sector," says Mitchell J. Rubin, a money manager at New York-based Baron Capital, an investor in on-line travel stocks.
    The travel industry’s pain is often the on-line industry’s gain, as suppliers push more discounted airline seats and hotel rooms to win back customers. And many of those deals are available only on dine. At the same time, on-line agencies rely primarily on leisure travelers, where traffic has rebounded more quickly than on the business side.
    The two biggest players, Travelocity Com. Inc. and Expedia Inc., are locked in combat for the top spot. Both sold some $3 billion worth of travel last year, though Expedia topped Travelocity in the fourth quarter in gross bookings. And thanks in part to a greater emphasis on wholesale deals with suppliers, Expedia is more profitable. For the quarter ended in December, Expedia posted its first net profit, $5.2 million, even with noncash and nonrecurring charges, compared with Travelocity’s $25 million loss.
    The airlines’ latest cost cutting moves may only spur the on-line stampede. Major carriers are eliminating travel agent commissions in the U.S. That could lead to growing service charges for consumers at traditional agencies, driving still more travelers to the Web. Jupiter Media Metrix is predicting that on line travel sales in the U.S. will jump 29%0, to $31 billion this year, and to $50 billion by 2005. About half of that is from airlines’ and other suppliers’ own Web sites, but that still leaves plenty of room for the online agents.
    This growing market is drawing plenty of competition and new players. Hotel and car rental franchiser Cendant Corp. snapped up Cheap Tickets last October. Barry Diller’s U.S.A Networks Inc. bought a controlling stake in Expedia. And a group of hotels, including Hilton Hotels and Hyatt Corp., are launching their own business this summer to market hotel rooms on the Net.
    Is the field too crowded? Analysts and on-line agencies aren’t worried, figuring that there’s plenty of new business to go around. But, for now, the clear winners are consumers, who can count on finding better services and better deals on line.
选项 A、suppliers markets.
B、price battles.
C、travel stocks.
D、on line services.
答案B
解析 题干问："从文章开头我们可以得到，旅游业的竞争主要围绕的是…"。原文第一句提到了"fierce price war(激烈的价格战争)"，所以旅游业的竞争主要围绕的是"价格战争"。而选项"供给者市场"，"证券市场"以及"在线服务"皆不符合题意。
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