The travel industry has gone through radical transformation over the past five years because of the Internet, where consumers will book $75B in travel this year. Currently, a large majority of US Internet travel searches and bookings are for domestic flights even though 30 to 40% of all US air travel is to international destinations. Why? Unlike domestic flights where airline inventory is stored in four large Global Distribution Systems (GDS's) which are accessible to all travel search sites and agencies, 40 to 50% of all international tickets are purchased by individual, wholesale consolidators. Consolidators negotiate deeply discounted fares with the airlines by guaranteeing certain volumes of ticket sales and then sell the tickets to large affinity groups and retail travel agencies. To get the best pricing on international flights, consumers need direct access to this consolidator inventory.

Redwood Shores, California-based Cfares (www.cfares.com) is a leading membership-based travel site offering precisely this service - real time, web access to deeply-discounted international airfares not generally available on traditional Internet travel sites. For your next, US-originating international flights, check out Cfares and see how much you might save!