The Internet has recently come of age. Started in the late 1960s by the U.S. Government, the global computer network Internet has become the standard medium of communication across over 40 thousand organizations, connecting over 30 million people worldwide. Internet members can exchange information using electronic mail and bulletin boards; they can preview catalogues, check flight information, make hotel reservations, and in the near future, they will be able to do banking on the Internet.

The World Wide Web, or the Web in short, is the mechanism that makes navigating the Internet extremely easy. The Web is a collection of documents (called pages) that are linked together. Each document can reside on any computer in the world, and using a simple language called hypertext, any page can point to any other page anywhere. And by simply pointing and clicking the mouse button, or by typing the location of a page, a person can retrieve any page on the Web, 24 hours a day, anywhere on this planet.

• Tremendous worldwide reach
  There are currently an estimated of 30 to 40 million people in over 100 countries connected through the Internet, significantly growing to somewhere between 100 to 200 million people by the year 2000. America Online, Prodigy, and Compuserve, the three largest online service companies in the world with over 9 million members, just opened the Web to their members. The Economist magazine estimated that the Web portion of the Internet has around 20 million members. This number will at least double in a year.
• Suitable audience demographic
  Recent surveys by two researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology indicated that the current Web members have the following characteristics:
  Young:Their average age is 31 years old.
  Professional: 45% of them work in a professional occupation
  Educated: 56% have university or post-graduate degrees.
  Have high disposable income: Average income is $65,000.-, about three-times the GNP per capita of the U.S.A. Over 42% have income between $35,000 and $75,000.
  These people are the most likely to travel!
• Continuous and instant access
  All members of the Internet and the Web can access and transfer information continuously 24 hours a day, almost instantaneously. Retrieving information over the Internet will normally take only one or two minutes to get from Pittsburgh, United States to Sydney, Australia, exactly on the opposite side of the globe. Sitting in his apartment in Tokyo, a traveler can retrieve your hotel Web page, served by a Web site located in California. All in one minute or less. Your business' information and advertising message on the Web can reach any potential customers in the world instantaneously.