题目内容
The travel industry's pain is often the online 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 online. At the same time, online 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 online 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 online travel sales in the U.S. will jump 29%, 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 USA 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 online 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 service and better deals online.
We can learn from the beginning that the competition in the travel industry revolves chiefly around
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How does the writer feel about the present situation？
We should always have been suspicious. After all, computers have spread quickly because they have become cheaper to buy and easier to use. Falling prices and skill requirements suggest that the digital divide would spontaneously shrink—and so it has.
Now, a new study further discredits the digital divide. The study, by economists David Card of the University of California, Berkeley, challenges the notion that computers have significantly worsened wage inequality. The logic of how this supposedly happens is straightforward: computers raise the demand for high-skilled workers, increasing their wages. Meanwhile, computerization—by automating many routine tasks—reduces the demand for low-skilled workers and, thereby, their wages. The gap between the two widens.
Superficially, wage statistics support the theory. Consider the ratio between workers near the top of the wage distribution and those near the bottom. Computerization increased; so did the wage gap.
But wait, point out Card and DiNardo. The trouble with blaming computers is that the worsening of inequality occurred primarily in the early 1980s. With computer use growing, the wage gap should have continued to expand, if it was being driven by a shifting demand for skills. Indeed, Card and DiNardo find much detailed evidence that contradicts the theory. They conclude that computerization does not explain "the rise in U.S. wage inequality in the last quarter of the 20th century."
The popular perception of computers' impact on wages is hugely overblown. Lots of other influences count for as much, or more. The worsening of wage inequality in the early 1980s, for example, almost certainly reflected the deep 1981-82 recession and the fall of inflation. Companies found it harder to raise prices. To survive, they concluded that they had to hold down the wages of their least skilled, least mobile and youngest workers.
The "digital divide" suggested a simple solution (computers) for a complex problem (poverty). With more computer access, the poor could escape their lot. But computers never were the source of anyone's poverty and, as for escaping, what people do for themselves matters more than what technology can do for them.
It is generally believed that the digital divide is something
Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the text？
某企业职工赵某本月工资5000元，其捐给希望工程基余会1400元，单位扣缴其个人所得税295元。 ()
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