Why many are giving up on internet travel & using agents

When I got into the travel business, one of my first questions to my host agent was how to compete with the online travel companies that seemed to be taking over the business. Expedia & the rest were spending a lot of money on a lot of commercial time, and there was no way we could compete with that. I was actually surprised when he told me that although they had affected business, they were not taking over by any means and in fact, there was a modest increase in business from those who had used the internet companies. The New York Times just reported a study that explains why: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/business/04frustrate.html?_r=1&ref=global

It boils down to service. Perhaps we agents can't compete with internet travel's advertising budgets, but they can't compete with our experience, knowledge, and customer service.