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Este informe no está disponible en español. CARIBBEAN BUSINESSPuertoRicoWOW.com Launches New Travel SectionAlliance with agency Condado Travel allows portal to offer low-price reservations to local residents and to visitors from outside the islandBy CB StaffMay 23, 2002 For two years, PuertoRicoWOW.com has offered ample travel information about Puerto Rico, accessible to users on the island, the States and foreign countries who want to experience Puerto Rico. Now, the island’s #1 Internet information portal also offers online reservations for trips within Puerto Rico as well as outside the island, in PuertoRicoWOW.com’s revamped travel section, Travel Now. The section is the result of a recent alliance established by PuertorRicoWOW.com and Condado Travel, one of the island’s biggest travel agency networks. Under the agreement, Condado Travel will be supplying online travel services and packages to users of PuertoRicoWOW.com. When visiting the new Travel Now section, users will find Puerto Rico travel information in a menu on the left side of the screen and Condado Travel’s low-cost package deals covering the rest of the section. There are also interesting travel articles written by the staff of PuertoRicoWOW.com. Travel Now executives say that people who reserve and purchase tickets from a local agency and website have access to local contacts who can secure lower rates and can attend to any needs visitors may have during their stay on the island. "The Condado Travel alliance is the perfect complement to the travel information we have been offering for a long time," said Manuel A. Casiano, chairman and editor in chief of Casiano Communications, parent company of PuertoRicoWOW.com. "We’ve received a lot of feedback from our users asking for online travel services, and now we’re able to offer it, in a way that is very user friendly and with fantastic deals." Some of that feedback, he added, has come from stateside users of the portal, who have indicated they would rather reserve Puerto Rico cruises, hotels and the rest, for their trips to the island, from a local source instead of a stateside agency or website. "That gives them the comfort of knowing that if something should go wrong when they arrive, they will have an agent right here on the island, as opposed to someone back home who may not be able to help them much." The consumer wins For his part, Jose D. Targa, president of Condado Travel, told CARIBBEAN BUSINESS the agreement allows the travel agency to broaden its reach in the growing Internet travel market. "There is no question that people who buy or reserve their travel services online prefer to do it with an agency that also has a physical presence," said Targa. "That’s why the boom in the use of Internet travel services has actually helped us. In that sense, the more we’re able to have a presence on the Internet, the more travelers will come to rely on Condado Travel." Doing it through Travel Now, added Targa, is a natural. "PuertoRicoWOW.com has the traffic, with four million hits every month. This is the marriage of a top travel agency with a top website, and the big winner is the consumer." The Puerto Rico information offered by Travel Now includes multiple directories, such as beaches, hotels, restaurants, stores, casinos, consulates, pubs and others. Users can track any airline flight or check the weather. There’s PuertoRicoWOW.com’s popular Calendar of Events, plus maps with directions and attractions, WOW News, even doctors and hospitals in case they are needed. "With this alliance with Condado Travel, our travel offering is now complete," said Jorge Lopez, general manager of PuertoRicoWOW.com. "Whether to travel in Puerto Rico or outside the island, users find it all in Travel Now." This Caribbean Business article appears courtesy of Casiano Communications.
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