The relationship between travel and the interest has grown rapidly in the past few years, since the internet has become easily accessible and cheaper.
One could book their flights, hotels, car rental, tours, everything through the click of a mouse.
Instead of going through a travel agent, and getting charged excess amount of fees, you are now able to just book your plane ticket directly through the airline.
There are websites such as http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/he/tutorial/travel, that actually explain how to use the internet effectively, and how to get the most out of it when making your travel arrangements. You are also able to view travel blogs, and learn about other people's experiences before booking.
I have found a link to an online text written by Gary Williams, William N. Chernish, Bob McKercher, "The Internet and Travel and Tourism Education" CLICK HERE to have a read, it is quite interesting, and they talk about the incorporation of the Internet in the teaching of Travel and Tourism studies.
But as I said in my comment I haven't seen any statistics on what the increase has been in people organising their own travel, and traveling a lot more since these tools have been introduced, but I am sure it has been a dramatic increase. I have been trying to look for more information on this, but I think since it is still such a new and growing technology and people have only been doing this recently, that these figures are not available yet.
But it is definitely an interesting thing to look into, and I am sure I will learn more about it myself when I begin my studies in Travel and Tourism next year.
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