USA Network

USA Network (commonly referred to as USA) is an American cable television channel launched in 1971. Once a minor player in basic cable, the network has steadily gained popularity due to original programming, including initial hits such as Silk Stalkings and La Femme Nikita, which were gradually followed by Monk, Psych, White Collar, Suits, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, and other series. The network is also known for having a relationship with WWE Raw. In addition to original productions, the network has aired syndicated reruns of hit series such as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and NCIS. The network also broadcasts a variety of films from the Universal Studios library.
History
Early years
The first logo of USA Network, used from January 3, 1979 to June 14, 1996

USA Network premiered on September 8, 1971, originally organized as the Madison Square Garden Network (not to be confused with the New York City regional sports network of that name). The channel became one of the first national cable television channels when it chose to use satellite delivery as opposed to microwave relay to cable systems. Initially, the network ran a mix of college and less watched professional sports similar to ESPN. It was on after 5 PM weekdays and noon weekends.

On January 3, 1979, the channel changed its name to USA Network after the ownership structure was reorganized under a joint operating agreement by the UA-Columbia Cablevision cable system and the then-MCA Inc./Universal City Studios. That fall, USA began signing on at Noon on weekdays and would run some talk shows and a children's program called Calliope. Sports programming commenced at 5 PM weekdays, and all weekend. In the fall of 1981, USA began programming daily at 6 AM, with talk shows and children's programs until noon, sports from noon on during weekends and until 3 PM weekdays, talk shows 3 to 6 PM weekdays, and sports again after 6 PM.

Later, in 1982, Time Inc. (which would go on to merge with Warner Communications to become Time Warner) and Gulf+Western's Paramount Pictures unit (now part of Viacom) would buy stakes in the venture. MCA/Universal and the latter company would become the sole owners in 1987 (each owning 50%). In the fall of 1982, USA began 24-hour-a-day operations, running a mix of talk shows, a children's program, and a low budget movie from 6 AM to 6 PM. They began running a mix of 1960s and 1970s Hanna-Barbera cartoons weekday evenings from 6 to 7 PM known as the USA Cartoon Express, and sports programming after 7 PM and rebroadcast that on overnights. Weekends had a mix of movies and some old drama shows and some talk shows during morning hours and sports afternoons and evenings. Overnights consisted of old low-budget films and film shorts and music under a show called Night Flight.

From 1984 to 1986, USA began moving away from sports programming[1] and began focusing on general entertainment programming not found on broadcast stations including some less common network drama shows and cartoons. One tradition was an afternoon lineup of game show reruns mixed in with several original low-budget productions aired over the years. It began in October 1984 with reruns of The Gong Show and Make Me Laugh. In September 1985, the network began airing a revival of the mid-1970s game show Jackpot, and another original show was added in September 1986: Love Me, Love Me Not. More shows were progressively added soon after such as The Joker's Wild, Tic-Tac-Dough, Press Your Luck, High Rollers, and Hollywood Squares with John Davidson, along with Wipeout, Face the Music, and Name That Tune. Another original show was added in June 1987, called Bumper Stumpers. When it began, the game show block ran for an hour, but expanded significantly the following year. By 1989, the network ran game shows from noon to 5 p.m. five days a week.
1990s
Second logo of USA Network from June 17, 1996 to July 5, 1999

The tradition of game show reruns continued into the 1990s with the $25,000 and $100,000 Pyramids, the early 1990s revivals of The Joker's Wild and Tic-Tac-Dough plus other well-known shows such as Scrabble, Sale of the Century, Talk About and Caesars Challenge. Additionally, two more original shows were added in June 1994: Free 4 All and Quicksilver. The block was decreased in September 1991 to only three hours, from 2 to 5 p.m. However, another hour was added in March 1993. In November 1994, it was cut back to only two hours, from 2 to 4 p.m.

In October 1995, the network dropped the entire game show block; it was replaced with a block called USA Live, which carried reruns of Love Connection and The People's Court, with live hosted wraparound segments between shows, but that block was dropped by 1997. Some of the game shows that USA broadcast can still be seen on GSN.

On September 24, 1992, USA launched a sister network, the Sci Fi Channel, which in July 2009 was renamed Syfy. In 1997, three years after the Paramount/Viacom merger, that company sold its stake in the networks to Universal (which, along with parent MCA, changed ownership twice earlier in the 1990s: to Matsushita in 1991, and then Seagrams in 1995, the latter company making Universal Studios the corporate name of its media division in 1997). Seagrams/Universal subsequently sold the networks to Barry Diller.

In September 1998, USA dropped the USA Action Extreme Team (which previously had been the USA Cartoon Express for 16 years) and has not rerun children's animated series since that time. USA replaced it with a block called "USAM", which advertised itself as Primetime Comedy in the Morning. This block included mostly sitcoms that were cancelled before making it to 100 episodes and for a time, also included the 1989–1994 episodes of the Bob Saget run of America's Funniest Home Videos. This block was dropped from the channel in 2001. USA also simulcasted the business news and information channel Bloomberg TV in the early-morning hours from 5–8 a.m. ET/PT; that simulcast moved to E! in 2004 until it was dropped from that channel in 2007. USA was actually the second television network to simulcast Bloomberg Television's programming, the now-defunct American Independent Network carried a simulcast of the channel during the mid-1990s.
2000s
The third logo of USA Network, used from July 6, 1999 to July 2005. Fourth logo of this network had five stripes, and fifth logo of this network uses a previous print logo in a blue box

In 2000, USA Networks bought Canada's North American Television, Inc. (a joint partnership between the CBC and Power Corporation of Canada), owner of cable TV channels Trio and Newsworld International (the CBC continued to program NWI until 2005, when eventual USA owner Vivendi sold the channel to a group led by Al Gore, who relaunched it as Current TV).

In 2001, USA Networks sold its non-shopping TV and film assets (including the USA Network, the Sci Fi Channel, the Trio channel, USA Films (which was rechristened as Focus Features) and Studios USA) to Vivendi Universal. USA and the other channels were folded into Vivendi's Universal Television Group.

In 2003, General Electric's NBC agreed to buy 80% of Vivendi Universal's North American–based filmed entertainment assets, including Universal Pictures and Universal Television Group in a multi-billion dollar purchase, renaming the merged company NBC Universal.

In 2004, NBC Universal officially took over as owner of USA and its sibling cable channels (except for Newsworld International as stated above). Sci fi series The 4400 premieres.

In 2006, USA premiered Psych, its current longest running original show.

USA Network launched a high definition version of the channel broadcasting in 1080i on October 3, 2007.[2] and is currently available on DirecTV, Dish Network, and several other cable systems,[3][4]

NBC Universal announced before NBC released their 2007–08 fall schedule on May 13, 2007 that Criminal Intent would be renewed for a seventh season. However, the new episodes of the series would premiere on USA beginning in fall 2007, with episodes repeating later in the season on NBC, most likely to shore up any programming holes created by a failed series. Although this is not the first time a broadcast series has moved to cable (as early at 1983, CBS's The Paper Chase moved to Showtime, and in 1987, NBC's revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents moved to USA Network, and even before that CBS's The Paper Chase moved to Showtime), it is a first in that a series which moved to cable will continue to show episodes on a broadcast network during its first-run era.[5] On December 7, 2007, it was announced that USA Network would continue broadcasting first-run episodes of WWE Raw until 2010.[6] The USA original series Burn Notice also made its debut in 2007.

In 2008, USA announced a new original series In Plain Sight, starring Mary McCormack, focusing on a United States Marshal working for the Witness Protection Program. The show was filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The series debuted June 1, 2008 with USA's highest-rated series premiere since the premiere of Psych in 2006 with 5.3 million viewers.[7]

In early 2009, USA Network acquired the network television rights for 24 recent and upcoming Universal Pictures films for $200 million. Among the films included in the deal are Milk, Frost/Nixon, Duplicity, State of Play, Land of the Lost and Funny People.[8] As of January 18, 2009 House was the highest-rated drama on USA Network (to this day) surpassing both Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, with In Plain Sight, Monk and NCIS.

Monk (which returned for its last season) and Psych returned Friday, August 7, 2009. Monk's series finale was on Friday, December 4, 2009. Psych paused mid-season on Friday, October 16, 2009 and resumed the airing of the 4th season's episodes in January 2010. USA's newest series White Collar premiered on Friday, October 23, 2009 and its fall finale was Friday, December 4, 2009 (with the series finale of Monk).
2010s

In 2010, USA Network started occupying weeknights with the networks original series. After the 2009–2010 season break, Burn Notice resumed airing the remainder of the 3rd season's episodes on Thursdays at 10:00 pm Eastern/9:00 pm Central as well as it being renewed for a 4th season starting Spring-Summer 2010. White Collar returned as well airing the remaining episodes of its first season on a new night and at a new time; on Tuesdays at 10:00pm Eastern/9:00 pm Central. Psych returned on a new night and at a new time; on Wednesdays at 10:00 pm Eastern/9:00 pm Central.

In 2011, control and majority ownership of then-parent NBCUniversal passed from General Electric to Comcast. Comcast would purchase GE's stock in NBCU two years later.[9]
Programming
Main article: List of programs broadcast by USA Network
Future programming

    The Moment[10]
    Graceland

NBC Sports

The network is the longtime home of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, and was the longtime cable home of tennis's US Open, which moved to ESPN2 and the Tennis Channel as of 2009. Since 2004, they have broadcast portions of the Olympic Games, along with many other NBCUniversal basic cable channels. Previously, it had a weekly boxing show named USA Tuesday Night Fights, which ran for 17 years. USA is also the home of World Wrestling Entertainment's (then called the World Wrestling Federation) flagship cable TV show WWE Raw from its debut in January 1993 until September 2000, and currently since October 2005. Each April from 1982–2007, USA broadcast the opening two rounds of the Masters along with high-definition coverage on Universal HD. The coverage switched to ESPN in 2008. USA also carried Major League Baseball games on Thursday nights from 1979 to 1983. USA Network also took part in broadcasting IIHF ice hockey in 2006 and 2010.

Upon the 2004 purchase of Vivendi Universal by NBC, USA's sports division was immediately merged into NBC Sports.
International
Canada

In February 2007, Shaw Communications submitted an application to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), to bring the USA Network to Canada (and to automatically allow all English-language general interest cable networks from the USA into Canada). However, because of programming rights issues in Canada, certain programs would be subjected to blackout, including WWE Raw.[11] In September 2007, the commission refused Shaw Communications' request to carry USA Network into Canada because it had too much programming that overlapped with Mystery TV. Mystery TV is an English language digital cable specialty channel that is owned by Shaw Media and Groupe TVA.[12] However, on September 20, 2007, the CRTC did say they would reconsider their denial of USA Network, when Shaw Communications instead offered to carry USA Network on their digital cable packages, at a future date.[13] However, this has since been rejected again because its programming would make the channel compete with Mystery TV.
South America

Countries in Latin America such as Argentina and Brazil previously had their own USA Network versions, but in September 2004, most were renamed Universal Channel to take advantage of the more well-known brand and reduce the awkwardness of a channel branded with the initials of another nation.

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North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas.[2] It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea.

North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers (9,540,000 square miles), about 4.8% of the planet's surface or about 16.5% of its land area. As of July 2008, its population was estimated at nearly 529 million people across 23 independent states, representing about 7.5% of the human population. North America is the third-largest continent in area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth in population after Asia, Africa, and Europe.[citation needed]

The first people to live in North America were Paleoindians who began to arrive during the last glacial period by crossing the Bering land bridge. They differentiated into a number of diverse cultures and communities across the continent. The largest and most advanced Pre-Columbian civilizations in North America were the Aztecs in what is now Mexico and the Mayans in Central America. European colonists began to arrive starting in the 16th and 17th centuries, wiping out large numbers of the native populations and beginning an era of European dominance.
Etymology
Map of North America, from the 16th century

The Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann.[3] Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a world map, in which he placed the word "America" on the continent of South America, in the middle of what is today Brazil. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio,

    ab Americo inventore ... quasi Americi terram sive Americam (from Americus the discoverer ... as if it were the land of Americus, thus America).[4]

For Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespucci's name (Americus Vespucius), but in its feminine form "America", following the examples of "Europa" and "Asia".

Later, when other mapmakers added North America, they extended the original name to it as well: in 1538, Gerard Mercator used the name America to all of the Western Hemisphere on his world map.[5]

Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty and so a derivation from "Amerigo Vespucci" could be problematic.[6] Ricardo Palma (1949) proposed a derivation from the "Amerrique" mountains of Central America—Vespucci was the first to discover South America and the Amerrique mountains of Central America, which connected his discoveries to those of Christopher Columbus.

Alfred E. Hudd proposed a theory in 1908 that the continents are named after a Welsh merchant named Richard Amerike from Bristol, who is believed to have financed John Cabot's voyage of discovery from England to Newfoundland in 1497. A minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of 'Amairick'. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language.[5]
History
Main article: History of North America
Geologic history

Laurentia is an ancient craton which forms the geologic core of North America; it formed between 1.5 to 1.0 billion years ago during the Proterozoic eon.[7] The Canadian Shield is the largest exposure of this craton. From the Late Paleozoic to Early Mesozoic eras, North America was joined with the other modern-day continents as part of the supercontinent Pangaea, with Eurasia to its east. One of the results of the formation of Pangaea was the Appalachian Mountains, which formed some 480 million years ago, making it among the oldest mountain ranges in the world. When Pangaea began to rift around 200 million years ago, North America became part of Laurasia, before it separated from Eurasia as its own continent during the mid-Cretaceous period.[8] The Rockies and other western mountain ranges began forming around this time from a period of mountain building called the Laramide orogeny, between 80 and 55 million years ago. The formation of the Isthmus of Panama connected the continent to South America about three million years ago, and the Great Lakes (as well as many other northern freshwater lakes and rivers) were carved by receding glaciers about 10,000 years ago.

North America is the source of much of what humanity knows about geologic time periods.[9] The geographic area that would later become the United States has been the source of more varieties of dinosaurs than any other modern country.[9] According to paleontologist Peter Dodson, this is primarily due to stratigraphy, climate and geography, human resources, and history.[9] Much of the Mesozoic Era is represented by exposed outcrops in the many arid regions of the continent.[9] The most significant Late Jurassic dinosaur-bearing fossil deposit in North America is the Morrison Formation of the western United States.[10]
Pre-Columbian
The ruins of Chichén Itzá, Mexico.

Anthropologists have a number of models explaining the origins of the early human population of North America. The indigenous peoples of North America have many creation myths by which they assert that they have been present on the land since its creation. The consensus is that indigenous North Americans first arrived from Asia during the last Ice Age, most likely through the Bering Land Bridge and possibly by primitive boats also.

Before contact with Europeans, the natives of North America were divided into many different polities, from small bands of a few families to large empires. They lived in several "culture areas", which roughly correspond to geographic and biological zones and give a good indication of the main lifeway or occupation of the people who lived there (e.g. the bison hunters of the Great Plains, or the farmers of Mesoamerica). Native groups can also be classified by their language family (e.g. Athapascan or Uto-Aztecan). Peoples with similar languages did not always share the same material culture, nor were they always allies. Anthropologists think that the Inuit people of the high Arctic came to North America much later than other native groups, as evidenced by the disappearance of Dorset culture artifacts from the archaeological record, and their replacement by the Thule people. It is possible that North America had several peoples among its early settlers.[11] The best known evidence that supports this theory is Kennewick Man.[12]

During the thousands of years of native habitation on the continent, cultures changed and shifted. One of the oldest cultures yet found is the Clovis culture of modern New Mexico. Later cultures include the Mississippian culture and related Mound building cultures, found in the Mississippi river valley and the Pueblo culture of what is now the Four Corners. The more southern cultural groups of North America were responsible for the domestication of many common crops now used around the world, such as tomatoes and squash. Perhaps most importantly they domesticated one of the world's major staples, maize (corn).

As a result of the development of agriculture in the south, many important cultural advances were made there. For example, the Maya civilization developed a writing system, built huge pyramids and temples, had a complex calendar, and developed the concept of zero around 400 CE, a few hundred years after the Mesopotamians.[13] The Mayan culture was still present in southern Mexico and Guatemala when the Spanish explorers arrived, but political dominance in the area had shifted to the Aztec Empire whose capital city Tenochtitlan was located further north in the Valley of Mexico. The Aztecs were conquered in 1521 by Hernán Cortés.[14]
Benjamin West's The Death of General Wolfe (1771) depicting the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.
Post-Columbian

During the Age of Discovery, Europeans began exploring and staking claims in various parts of North America. Upon their arrival in the "New World", the Native American population declined substantially, primarily due to the introduction of European diseases to which the Native Americans lacked immunity,[15] as well as violent conflicts. Native peoples found their culture changed drastically. As such, their affiliation with political and cultural groups changed as well, several linguistic groups went extinct, and others changed quite quickly. The names and cultures that Europeans recorded for the natives were not necessarily the same as the ones they had used a few generations before, or the ones in use today.

Britain, Spain, and France fought over and established extensive territories in North America. In the late 18th century and beginning of the 19th, several independence movements started across the continent, which would create its modern countries. The 13 British colonies on the North Atlantic coast declared independence in 1776, becoming the United States of America. Canada was formed from the unification of northern territories controlled by Britain and France. New Spain, a territory that stretched from modern-day southern U.S. to Central America, declared independence in 1810 becoming the First Mexican Empire. In 1823 the former Captaincy General of Guatemala, then part of the Mexican Empire, became the first independent state in Central America, officially changing its name to the United Provinces of Central America.
Geography and extent
Further information: Geography of North America
Satellite imagery of North America.

North America occupies the northern portion of the landmass generally referred to as the New World, the Western Hemisphere, the Americas, or simply America (which, less commonly, is considered by some as a single continent[16][17][18] with North America a subcontinent).[19] North America's only land connection to South America is at the Isthmus of Panama. The continent is delimited on the southeast by most geographers at the Darién watershed along the Colombia-Panama border, placing all of Panama within North America.[20][21][22] Alternatively, less common views would end North America at the man-made Panama Canal[citation needed], and some geologists physiographically locate its southern limit at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico, with Central America extending southeastward to South America from this point.[23] The Caribbean islands, or West Indies, are considered part of North America.[2]

Before the Central American isthmus was raised, the region had been underwater. The islands of the West Indies delineate a submerged former land bridge which had connected North America and South America via what are now Florida and Venezuela. The continental coastline is long and irregular. The Gulf of Mexico is the largest body of water indenting the continent, followed by Hudson Bay. Others include the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the Gulf of California.

There are numerous islands off the continent’s coasts, principally, the Arctic Archipelago, the Bahamas, Turks & Caicos, the Greater and Lesser Antilles, the Aleutian Islands (some of which are in the Eastern Hemisphere proper), the Alexander Archipelago, the many thousand islands of the British Columbia Coast, and Newfoundland. Greenland, a self-governing Danish island, and the world's largest, is on the same tectonic plate (the North American Plate) and is part of North America geographically. In a geologic sense, Bermuda is not part of the Americas, but an oceanic island which was formed on the fissure of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge over 100 million years ago. The nearest landmass to it is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. However, Bermuda is often thought of as part of North America, especially given its historical, political and cultural ties to Virginia and other parts of the continent.
Moraine Lake in Banff National Park

The vast majority of North America is on the North American Plate. Parts of western Mexico, including Baja California, and of California, including the cities of San Diego, Los Angeles and part of San Francisco, lie on the eastern edge of the Pacific Plate, with the two plates meeting along the San Andreas fault. The southernmost portion of the continent and much of the West Indies lie on the Caribbean Plate, whereas the Juan de Fuca and Cocos plates border the North American Plate on its western frontier.

The continent can be divided into four great regions (each of which contains many subregions): the Great Plains stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Arctic; the geologically young, mountainous west, including the Rocky Mountains, the Great Basin, California and Alaska; the raised but relatively flat plateau of the Canadian Shield in the northeast; and the varied eastern region, which includes the Appalachian Mountains, the coastal plain along the Atlantic seaboard, and the Florida peninsula. Mexico, with its long plateaus and cordilleras, falls largely in the western region, although the eastern coastal plain does extend south along the Gulf.

The western mountains are split in the middle into the main range of the Rockies and the coast ranges in California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, with the Great Basin—a lower area containing smaller ranges and low-lying deserts—in between. The highest peak is Denali in Alaska.

The United States Geographical Survey states that the geographic center of North America is "6 miles west of Balta, Pierce County, North Dakota" at approximately 48°10′N 100°10′W, approximately 15 miles (24 km) from Rugby, North Dakota. The USGS further states that “No marked or monumented point has been established by any government agency as the geographic center of either the 50 States, the conterminous United States, or the North American continent.” Nonetheless, there is a 15-foot (4.5 m) field stone obelisk in Rugby claiming to mark the center. The North American continental pole of inaccessibility is located 1,650 km (1,030 mi) from the nearest coastline, between Allen and Kyle, South Dakota at 43.36°N 101.97°W.

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Alaska - USA (Travel)

Alaska (Listeni/əˈlæskə/) is a state in the United States, situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with the international boundary with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait. Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area, the 4th least populous and the least densely populated of the 50 United States. Approximately half of Alaska's 731,449[4] residents live within the Anchorage metropolitan area. Alaska's economy is dominated by the oil, natural gas, and fishing industries; it has these resources in abundance.

Alaska was purchased from Russia on March 30, 1867, for $7.2 million ($118 million adjusted for inflation) at approximately two cents per acre ($4.74/km²). The land went through several administrative changes before becoming an organized (or incorporated) territory on May 11, 1912, and the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959.[6]

The name "Alaska" (Аляска) was already introduced in the Russian colonial period, when it was used only for the peninsula and is derived from the Aleut alaxsxaq, meaning "the mainland" or, more literally, "the object towards which the action of the sea is directed".[7] It is also known as Alyeska, the "great land", an Aleut word derived from the same root.
Geography
Main article: Geography of Alaska

Alaska has a longer coastline than all the other U.S. states combined.[8] It is the only non-contiguous U.S. state on continental North America; about 500 miles (800 km) of British Columbia (Canada) separates Alaska from Washington state. Alaska is thus an exclave of the United States, possibly the largest exclave in the world. It is technically part of the continental U.S., but is often not included in colloquial use; Alaska is not part of the contiguous U.S., often called "the Lower 48".[9] The capital city, Juneau, is situated on the mainland of the North American continent, but is not connected by road to the rest of the North American highway system.

The state is bordered by Yukon and British Columbia in Canada, to the east, the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean to the south, the Bering Sea, Bering Strait, and Chukchi Sea to the west and the Arctic Ocean to the north. Alaska's territorial waters touch Russia's territorial waters in the Bering Strait, as the Russian Big Diomede Island and Alaskan Little Diomede Island are only 3 miles (4.8 km) apart. With the extension of the Aleutian Islands into the eastern hemisphere, it is technically both the westernmost and easternmost state in the United States, as well as also being the northernmost.
Alaska is the largest state in the United States in land area at 586,412 square miles (1,518,800 km2), over twice the size of Texas, the next largest state. Alaska is larger than all but 18 sovereign countries. Counting territorial waters, Alaska is larger than the combined area of the next three largest states: Texas, California, and Montana. It is also larger than the combined area of the 22 smallest U.S. states.
Regions

There are no officially defined borders demarcating the various regions of Alaska, but there are six widely accepted regions:
South Central
Main article: South Central Alaska

The most populous region of Alaska, containing Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna Valley and the Kenai Peninsula. Rural, mostly unpopulated areas south of the Alaska Range and west of the Wrangell Mountains also fall within the definition of Southcentral, as well as the Prince William Sound area and the communities of Cordova and Valdez.
Southeast
Main article: Southeast Alaska

Also referred to as the Panhandle or Inside Passage, this is the region of Alaska closest to the rest of the United States. As such, this was where most of the initial non-indigenous settlement occurred in the years following the Alaska Purchase. The region is dominated by the Alexander Archipelago as well as the Tongass National Forest, the largest national forest in the United States. It contains the state capital, Juneau, the former capital, Sitka, and Ketchikan, at one time Alaska's largest city.[10] The Alaska Marine Highway provides a vital surface transportation link throughout the area, as only three communities (Haines, Hyder and Skagway) enjoy direct connections to the contiguous North American road system.
Interior
Main article: Alaska Interior
Mount McKinley is both the highest peak in Alaska and in all of North America.

The largest region of Alaska, much of the interior is uninhabited wilderness. Fairbanks is the only large city in the region. Small towns and Native villages are scattered throughout, mostly along the highway and river systems. Denali National Park and Preserve is located here, home to Mount McKinley (also widely known by its local name of Denali), the highest point in North America.
Southwest
Main article: Southwest Alaska
Grizzly bear fishing for salmon at Brooks Falls.

Southwest Alaska is a sparsely inhabited region stretching some 500 miles (800 km) inland from the Bering Sea. Most of the population lives along the coast. Kodiak Island is also located in Southwest. The massive Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta, one of the largest river deltas in the world, is here. Portions of the Alaska Peninsula are considered part of Southwest, with the remaining portions included with the Aleutian Islands (see below).
North Slope
Main article: Alaska North Slope

The North Slope is mostly tundra peppered with small villages. The area is known for its massive reserves of crude oil, and contains both the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska and the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field.[11] Barrow, the northernmost city in the United States, is located here. The Northwest Arctic area, anchored by Kotzebue and also containing the Kobuk River valley, is often regarded as being part of this region. However, the respective Inupiat of the North Slope and of the Northwest Arctic seldom think of themselves as one.
Aleutian Islands
Main article: Aleutian Islands

More than 300 small, volcanic islands make up this chain, which stretches over 1,200 miles (1,900 km) into the Pacific Ocean. The International Date Line was drawn west of 180° to keep the whole state, and thus the entire North American continent, within the same legal day. However, because some of these islands fall in the Eastern Hemisphere, this makes Alaska the northernmost, easternmost and westernmost state in the union, with the southernmost state being Hawaii. Two of the islands, Attu and Kiska, were occupied by Japanese forces during World War II.
Natural features
Augustine Volcano erupting on January 12, 2006.

With its myriad islands, Alaska has nearly 34,000 miles (54,720 km) of tidal shoreline. The Aleutian Islands chain extends west from the southern tip of the Alaska Peninsula. Many active volcanoes are found in the Aleutians and in coastal regions. Unimak Island, for example, is home to Mount Shishaldin, which is an occasionally smoldering volcano that rises to 10,000 feet (3,048 m) above the North Pacific. It is the most perfect volcanic cone on Earth, even more symmetrical than Japan's Mount Fuji. The chain of volcanoes extends to Mount Spurr, west of Anchorage on the mainland. Geologists have identified Alaska as part of Wrangellia, a large region consisting of multiple states and Canadian provinces in the Pacific Northwest which is actively undergoing continent building.

One of the world's largest tides occurs in Turnagain Arm, just south of Anchorage – tidal differences can be more than 35 feet (10.7 m). (Many sources say Turnagain has the second-greatest tides in North America, but several areas in Canada have larger tides.)[12]
Main article: List of lakes in Alaska

Alaska has more than three million lakes.[13][14] Marshlands and wetland permafrost cover 188,320 square miles (487,747 km2) (mostly in northern, western and southwest flatlands). Glacier ice covers some 16,000 square miles (41,440 km2) of land and 1,200 square miles (3,110 km2) of tidal zone. The Bering Glacier complex near the southeastern border with Yukon covers 2,250 square miles (5,827 km2) alone. With over 100,000, Alaska has half of the world's glaciers.
Land ownership
Alaska has more public land owned by the federal government than any other state.
According to an October 1998 report by the United States Bureau of Land Management, approximately 65% of Alaska is owned and managed by the U.S. federal government as public lands, including a multitude of national forests, national parks, and national wildlife refuges. Of these, the Bureau of Land Management manages 87 million acres (35 million hectares), or 23.8% of the state. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. It is the world's largest wildlife refuge, comprising 16 million acres (6.5 million hectares).

Of the remaining land area, the state of Alaska owns 101 million acres (41 million hectares); its entitlement under the Alaska Statehood Act. A portion of that acreage is occasionally ceded to organized boroughs, under the statutory provisions pertaining to newly formed boroughs. Smaller portions are set aside for rural subdivisions and other homesteading-related opportunities, though these are infrequently popular due to the often remote and roadless locations. The University of Alaska, as a land grant university, also owns substantial acreage which it manages independently.

Another 44 million acres (18 million hectares) are owned by 12 regional, and scores of local, Native corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Regional Native corporation Doyon, Limited often promotes itself as the largest private landowner in Alaska in advertisements and other communications. Provisions of ANCSA allowing the corporations' land holdings to be sold on the open market starting in 1991 were repealed before they could take effect. Effectively, the corporations hold title (including subsurface title in many cases, a privilege denied to individual Alaskans) but cannot sell the land. Individual Native allotments can be and are sold on the open market, however.

Various private interests own the remaining land, totaling about one percent of the state. Alaska is, by a large margin, the state with the smallest percentage of private land ownership when Native corporation holdings are excluded.
Climate
Main article: Climate of Alaska

The climate in Southeast Alaska is a mid-latitude oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification Cfb) in the southern sections and a subarctic oceanic climate (Köppen Cfc) in the northern parts. On an annual basis, Southeast is both the wettest and warmest part of Alaska with milder temperatures in the winter and high precipitation throughout the year. Juneau averages over 50 inches (1,270 mm) of precipitation a year, and Ketchikan averages over 150 inches (3,810 mm). This is also the only region in Alaska in which the average daytime high temperature is above freezing during the winter months.

The climate of Anchorage and south central Alaska is mild by Alaskan standards due to the region's proximity to the seacoast. While the area gets less rain than southeast Alaska, it gets more snow, and days tend to be clearer. On average, Anchorage receives 16 inches (406 mm) of precipitation a year, with around 75 inches (191 cm) of snow, although there are areas in the south central which receive far more snow. It is a subarctic climate (Köppen Dfc) due to its brief, cool summers.
Barrow (Browerville neighborhood near Eben Hopson Middle School shown), known colloquially for many years by the nickname "Top of the World", is the northernmost city in the United States.

The climate of Western Alaska is determined in large part by the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. It is a subarctic oceanic climate in the southwest and a continental subarctic climate farther north. The temperature is somewhat moderate considering how far north the area is. This region has a tremendous amount of variety in precipitation. An area stretching from the northern side of the Seward Peninsula to the Kobuk River valley is technically a desert, with portions receiving less than 10 inches (254 mm) of precipitation annually. On the other extreme, some locations between Dillingham and Bethel average around 100 inches (2,540 mm) of precipitation.

The climate of the interior of Alaska is subarctic. Some of the highest and lowest temperatures in Alaska occur around the area near Fairbanks. The summers may have temperatures reaching into the 90s °F (the low to mid 30s °C), while in the winter, the temperature can fall below −60 °F (−51.1 °C). Precipitation is sparse in the Interior, often less than 10 inches (254 mm) a year, but what precipitation falls in the winter tends to stay the entire winter.

The highest and lowest recorded temperatures in Alaska are both in the Interior. The highest is 100 °F (37.8 °C) in Fort Yukon (which is just 8 miles or 13 kilometers inside the arctic circle) on June 27, 1915, making Alaska tied with Hawaii as the state with the lowest high temperature in the United States.[20][21] The lowest official Alaska temperature is −80 °F (−62.2 °C) in Prospect Creek on January 23, 1971,[18][19] one degree above the lowest temperature recorded in continental North America (in Snag, Yukon, Canada).

The climate in the extreme north of Alaska is Arctic (Köppen ET) with long, very cold winters and short, cool summers. Even in July, the average low temperature in Barrow is 34 °F (1.1 °C).[23] Precipitation is light in this part of Alaska, with many places averaging less than 10 inches (254 mm) per year, mostly as snow which stays on the ground almost the entire year.

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United States

The United States of America (USA or U.S.A.), commonly called the United States (US or U.S.) or America, is a federal republic[10][11] consisting of fifty states and a federal district. The lower forty-eight contiguous states and the federal district of Washington, D.C. are in central North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is west of Canada and east of Russia across the Bering Strait, and the state of Hawaii is in the mid-North Pacific. The country also has five populated and nine unpopulated territories in the Pacific and the Caribbean.

At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) and with around 315 million people, the United States is the third- or fourth-largest country by total area and the third-largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries.[12] The geography and climate of the U.S. is also extremely diverse, with deserts, plains, forests, and mountains that are home to a wide variety of species.

Paleoindians migrated from Asia to what is now the United States mainland around 15,000 years ago. After 1500, Old World diseases introduced by Europeans greatly reduced their populations. European colonization began around 1600 and came mostly from England. The United States emerged from thirteen British colonies located along the Atlantic seaboard. Disputes between Great Britain and the American colonies led to the American Revolution. On July 4, 1776, delegates from the 13 colonies unanimously issued the Declaration of Independence, which established the United States of America. The American Revolutionary War, which ended with the recognition of independence of the United States from the Kingdom of Great Britain, was the first successful war of independence against a European colonial empire.[13][14] The current Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787; twenty-seven Amendments have since been added to the Constitution. The first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and guarantee many fundamental civil rights and freedoms.

Driven by the doctrine of manifest destiny, the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century.[15] This involved displacing native tribes, acquiring new territories, and gradually admitting new states.[15] The American Civil War ended legalized slavery in the United States.[16] By the end of the nineteenth century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean,[17] and its economy was the world's largest.[18] The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power. The United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country with nuclear weapons, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States as the sole superpower.

The United States is a developed country and has the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2012 GDP of $15.6 trillion – 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity, as of 2011.[6][19][20] The per capita GDP of the U.S. was the world's sixth-highest as of 2010,[6] although America's wealth inequality was also ranked highest among OECD countries by the World Bank.[21] The economy is fueled by an abundance of natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure,[22] and high productivity;[23] and while its economy is considered post-industrial it continues to be one of the world's largest manufacturers.[24] The country accounts for 39% of global military spending,[25] and is a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the world, as well as a leader in scientific research and technological innovation.
Etymology
See also: Names for United States citizens

In 1507, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere "America" after Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci.[28]

The first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymously written essay published in the Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia on April 6, 1776.[29][30] In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson included the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence.[31][32] In the final Fourth of July version of the Declaration, the pertinent section of the title was changed to read, "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America".[33]

In 1777 the Articles of Confederation announced, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America'".[34]

The short form "United States" is also standard. Other common forms include the "U.S.", the "USA", and "America". Colloquial names include the "U.S. of A." and, internationally, the "States". "Columbia", a name popular in poetry and songs of the late 1700s,[35] derives its origin from Christopher Columbus; it appears in the name "District of Columbia".

The standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is as an "American". "United States", "American" and "U.S." are used to refer to the country adjectivally ("American values", "U.S. forces"). "American" is rarely used in English to refer to subjects not connected with the United States.[36]

The phrase "United States" was originally treated as plural, a description of a collection of independent states—e.g., "the United States are"—including in the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865. It became common to treat it as singular, a single unit—e.g., "the United States is"—after the end of the Civil War. The singular form is now standard; the plural form is retained in the idiom "these United States".[37] The difference has been described as more significant than one of usage, but reflecting the difference between a collection of states and a unit.[38]

In non-English languages, the name is frequently translated as the translation of either the "United States" or "United States of America", and colloquially as "America". In addition, an initialism is sometimes used.[39]
History
Main article: History of the United States
Native American and European settlement

The indigenous peoples of the U.S. mainland, migrated from Asia, beginning between 40,000 and 12,000 years ago.[40] Some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies. After European explorers and traders made the first contacts, many millions died from epidemics of imported diseases such as smallpox.
The first Spanish explorers landed in "La Florida" in 1513. Spain set up settlements in California, Florida, and New Mexico that were eventually merged into the United States. There were also some French settlements along the Mississippi River.

James I on 10 April 1606 chartered The Virginia Company with the purpose of establishing English settlements on the eastern coast of North America. The Virginia Colony was planted in 1607 with Jamestown and the Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620.

Some 100,000 Puritans later settled New England, especially the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Beginning in 1614, the Dutch settled in present day New York State; their colony of New Netherland, which had earlier conquered New Sweden, was taken over by England in 1674, but a strong Dutch influence persisted in the Hudson Valley north of New York City for generations. Many new settlers, especially to the South, were indentured servants—some two-thirds of all Virginia settlers between 1630 and 1680.[42] By the turn of the 18th century, African slaves were becoming the primary source of bonded labor in many regions.[43]

With the 1729 division of the Carolinas and the 1732 colonization of Georgia, the thirteen British colonies that would become the United States of America were established.[44] All had local governments with elections open to most free men, with a growing devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self-government stimulating support for republicanism. All legalized the African slave trade.[45] With high birth rates, low death rates, and steady settlement, the colonial population grew rapidly. The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest in both religion and religious liberty.

In the French and Indian War, British forces seized Canada from the French, but the francophone population remained politically isolated from the southern colonies. Excluding the Native Americans, who were being conquered and displaced, those thirteen colonies had a population of 2.6 million in 1770, about one-third that of Britain. Nearly one-fifth of those living in what would become the United States were black slaves.[46]

English expansion westward saw incorporation of disparate pre-established cultures it met. But it also found Amerindian resistance to that settlement. Their opposition took various forms across the continent, as allies with Europeans, multi-tribe nations, and alone—by relocation and warring, by treaties and in court. On the other hand, the colonists of British North America were subject to British taxation, they had no representation in the Parliament of Great Britain.
Independence and expansion

The American Revolution was the first successful colonial war of independence against a European power. Americans had developed a democratic system of local government and an ideology of "republicanism" that held government rested on the will of the people (not the king), which strongly opposed corruption and demanded civic virtue. They demanded their rights as Englishmen and rejected British efforts to impose taxes without the approval of colonial legislatures. The British insisted and the conflict escalated to full-scale war in 1775, the American Revolutionary War.[47] On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress, convening in Philadelphia, established a Continental Army under the command of George Washington.[48] Proclaiming that "all men are created equal" and endowed with "certain unalienable Rights", the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4, 1776. That date is now celebrated annually as America's Independence Day. In 1777, the Articles of Confederation established a weak government that operated until 1789.

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CheapTickets

CheapTickets is an online travel services company focusing on the leisure market, offering airline tickets, hotel and Vacation rentals, rental cars, customized vacation packages, and cruises. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Orbitz Worldwide, Inc.

CheapTickets was founded in 1986 in Honolulu, Hawaii by Michael and Sandra Hartley when inter-island carrier Mid Pacific Air gave 3,000 tickets to Hartley's employer at the time, advertising firm Regency Media, as payment for its services at the time Regency closed its Honolulu branch. The tickets were advertised via newspaper classified ads and sold out in two weeks. The company grew into an airline ticket consolidator, acquiring seats from airlines at rates low enough to allow the company to resell them at fares lower than the airline's normal published airfares.[1]

It opened its first call center in Honolulu in 1987, and would later open call centers in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Lakeport, California, Los Angeles, California, and Tampa, Florida.[2] It launched its web site in 1997, becoming a pioneer in Internet travel sales.[3] The company operated brick and mortar agency locations in Hawaii, California, New York, and Washington which were closed by the end of 2001, by which time they accounted for 2 percent of the company's business.[1][4]

The company was acquired in 2000 by Cendant. In July 2006 it was included with the sale of Travelport to the Blackstone Group, part of their Travel Distribution Services Division that later became Orbitz Worldwide, Inc.[5][6]

In 2009, Orbitz was sued by the state of New Jersey for alleged violations of the state's Consumer Fraud Act relating to tickets offered for sale on CheapTickets Exchange for a Bruce Springsteen concert prior to the first public sale date. The company successfully claimed immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and Milgram v. Orbitz was dismissed.[

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World Travel agency

Travel & Tourism   Travel & Tourism   Travel & Tourism ::: USA , AUSTRALIA NEWZELAND, UK, EUROPE, RUSSIA, AFRICA, INDIA, Canada

A travel agency is a private retailer or public service that provides tourism related services to the public on behalf of suppliers such as airlines, car rentals, cruise lines, hotels, railways, and package tours. In addition to dealing with ordinary tourists most travel agencies have a separate department devoted to making travel arrangements for business travelers and some travel agencies specialize in commercial and business travel only. There are also travel agencies that serve as general sales agents for foreign travel companies, allowing them to have offices in countries other than where their headquarters are located.
Origins

The British company Cox & Kings is sometimes said to be the oldest travel agency in the world, but this rests upon the services that the original bank, established in 1758, supplied to its wealthy clients. The modern travel agency first appeared in the second half of the 19th century. Thomas Cook, in addition to developing the package tour, established a chain of agencies in the last quarter of the 19th century, in association with the Midland Railway. They not only sold their own tours to the public, but in addition, represented other tour companies. Other British pioneer travel agencies were Dean & Dawson,[1] the Polytechnic Touring Association and the Co-operative Wholesale Society. The oldest travel agency in North America is Brownell Travel; on July 4, 1887, Walter T. Brownell led ten travelers on a European tour, setting sail from New York on the SS Devonia.[2]

Travel agencies became more commonplace with the development of commercial aviation, starting in the 1920s. Originally, travel agencies largely catered to middle and upper class customers, but the post-war boom in mass-market package holidays resulted in travel agencies on the main streets of most British towns, catering to a working-class clientele, looking for a convenient way to book overseas beach holidays.
Operations

A travel agency's main function is to act as an agent, selling travel products and services on behalf of a supplier. Consequently, unlike other retail businesses, they do not keep a stock in hand. A package holiday or a ticket is not purchased from a supplier unless a customer requests that purchase. The holiday or ticket is supplied to them at a discount. The profit is therefore the difference between the advertised price which the customer pays and the discounted price at which it is supplied to the agent. This is known as the commission. In many countries, all individuals or companies that sell tickets are required to be licensed as a travel agent. In some countries, airlines have stopped giving commission to travel agencies. Therefore, travel agencies are now forced to charge a percentage premium or a standard flat fee, per sale. However, some companies still give them a set percentage for selling their product. Major tour companies can afford to do this, because if they were to sell a thousand trips at a cheaper rate, they still come out better than if they sell a hundred trips at a higher rate. This process benefits both parties. It is also cheaper to offer commissions to travel agents rather than engage in advertising and distribution campaigns without using agents.

Other commercial operations are undertaken, especially by the larger chains. These can include the sale of in-house insurance, travel guide books and timetables, car rentals, and the services of an on-site Bureau de change, dealing in the most popular holiday currencies.

The majority of travel agents have felt the need to protect themselves and their clients against the possibilities of commercial failure, either their own or a supplier's. They will advertise the fact that they are surety bonded, meaning in the case of a failure, the customers are guaranteed either an equivalent holiday to that which they have lost or if they prefer, a refund. Many British and American agencies and tour operators are bonded with the International Air Transport Association (IATA),[3] for those who issue air tickets, Air Travel Organisers' Licensing (ATOL) for those who order tickets in, the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) or the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA), for those who sell package holidays on behalf of a tour company.

A travel agent is supposed to offer impartial travel advice to the customer. However, this function almost disappeared with the mass-market package holiday and some agency chains seemed to develop a 'holiday supermarket' concept, in which customers choose their holiday from brochures on racks and then book it from a counter. Again, a variety of social and economic changes have now contrived to bring this aspect to the fore once more, particularly with the advent of multiple, no-frills, low-cost airlines.
Commissions

Several areas of a travel agency’s focus pay commissions to the agency which becomes it’s principal income. These are mainly car rentals, cruise lines, hotels, railways, sightseeing tours, tour operators, etc. A fixed percentage of the main element of the price is paid to the agent as a commission. Commissions are not paid on the Tax component of the price.

However regarding air travel, commissions are becoming a thing of the past. In the United States, most airlines pay no commission at all to travel agencies. In this case, an agency usually adds a service fee to the net price. Reduced commissions have taken place since 1995, when first commission reductions hit North America: a cap of $50 on return trips and $25 on one way. [4] In 1999 European airlines began eliminating or reducing commissions, while Singapore Airlines did so in parts of Asia.[5] In 2002 Delta Air Lines announced a zero commission base for USA and Canada; after a few months United Airlines, American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Northwest Airlines, US Airways and American Trans Air joined Delta.[6]
Types of agencies

There are three different types of agencies in the UK: multiples, miniples and independent agencies. The former comprises a number of national chains, often owned by international conglomerates, like Thomson Holidays, now a subsidiary of TUI AG, the German multinational.[7] It is now quite common for the large mass-market tour companies to purchase a controlling interest in a chain of travel agencies, in order to control the distribution of their product. (This is an example of vertical integration.) The smaller chains are often based in particular regions or districts.

In the United States, there are four different types of agencies: mega, regional, consortium and independent agencies. American Express and the American Automobile Association (AAA) are examples of mega travel agencies.

Independent agencies usually cater to a special or niche market, such as the needs of residents in an upmarket commuter town or suburb or a particular group interested in a similar activity, such as sporting events, like football, golf or tennis.

There are two approaches of travel agencies. One is the traditional, multi-destination, out-bound travel agency, based in the originating location of the traveler and the other is the destination focused, in-bound travel agency, that is based in the destination and delivers an expertise on that location. At present, the former is usually a larger operator like Thomas Cook, while the latter is often a smaller, independent operator.
Consolidators

Airline consolidators and other types of travel consolidators and wholesalers are high volume sales companies that specialize in selling to niche markets. They may or may not offer various types of services, at a single point of access. These can be hotel reservations, flights or car-rentals. Sometimes the services are combined into vacation packages, that include transfers to the location and lodging. These companies do not usually sell directly to the public, but act as wholesalers to retail travel agencies. Commonly, the sole purpose of consolidators is to sell to ethnic niches in the travel industry. Usually no consolidator offers everything; they may only have contracted rates to specific destinations. Today, there are no domestic consolidators, with some exceptions for business class contracts.
Travel agencies in the 21st century
With general public access to the Internet, many airlines and other travel companies began to sell directly to passengers. As a consequence, airlines no longer needed to pay the commissions to travel agents on each ticket sold. Since 1997, travel agencies have gradually been disintermediated, by the reduction in costs caused by removing layers from the package holiday distribution network.[8][9] However, travel agents remain dominant in some areas such as cruise vacations where they represent 77% of bookings and 73% of packaged travel.[10] In 2009, the market size for travel agencies experienced a sharp decline, dropping from $17 billion the previous year to $14.5 billion.[11]

In response, travel agencies have developed an internet presence of their own by creating travel websites, with detailed information and online booking capabilities. Major online travel agencies include: Expedia, Voyages-sncf.com, Travelocity, Orbitz, CheapTickets, Priceline, CheapOair,Mann Travel, Webjet, and Hotwire.com. Travel agencies also use the services of the major computer reservations systems companies, also known as Global Distribution Systems (GDS), including: SABRE, Amadeus CRS, Galileo CRS and Worldspan, which is a subsidiary of Travelport, allowing them to book and sell airline tickets, hotels, car rentals and other travel related services. Some online travel websites allow visitors to compare hotel and flight rates with multiple companies for free. They often allow visitors to sort the travel packages by amenities, price, and proximity to a city or landmark.

Travel agents have applied dynamic packaging tools to provide fully bonded (full financial protection) travel at prices equal to or lower than a member of the public can book online. As such, the agencies' financial assets are protected in addition to professional travel agency advice.

All travel sites that sell hotels online work together with GDS, suppliers and hotels directly to search for room inventory. Once the travel site sells a hotel, the site will try to get a confirmation for this hotel. Once confirmed or not, the customer is contacted with the result. This means that booking a hotel on a travel website will not necessarily result in an instant answer. Only some hotels on a travel website can be confirmed instantly (which is normally marked as such on each site). As different travel websites work with different suppliers together, each site has different hotels that it can confirm instantly. Some examples of such online travel websites that sell hotel rooms are Expedia, Orbitz and WorldHotel-Link.

The comparison sites, such as Kayak.com, TripAdvisor and SideStep search the resellers site all at once to save time searching. None of these sites actually sell hotel rooms.

Often tour operators have hotel contracts, allotments and free sell agreements which allow for the immediate confirmation of hotel rooms for vacation bookings.

Mainline service providers are those that actually produce the direct service, like various hotels chains or airlines that have a website for online bookings. Portals will serve a consolidator of various airlines and hotels on the internet. They work on a commission from these hotels and airlines. Often, they provide cheaper rates than the mainline service providers as these sites get bulk deals from the service providers. A meta search engine on the other hand, simply culls data from the internet on real time rates for various search queries and diverts traffic to the mainline service providers for an online booking. These websites usually do not have their own booking engine.

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