The World Wide Web is a natural medium for tourist organisations. It enables a country or area to create an encyclopaedia of information and even booking functions that can be distributed to every part of the globe accessible via a PC and modem. There are many web sites devoted to tourism such as the British Tourist Authority's www.visitbritain.com site. The number of Internet users shopping online for travel and leisure services doubled in 1999 to 27 million. Travel has beaten computer software to the number one spot as the preferred product to buy on the Internet. .
Although there has become a great demand for virtual tourism on the World Wide Web it is important to look at the experience of the virtual tourist in comparison to reality. The negative aspects to virtual tourism are based on the things you cannot do when looking at a web site such as get holiday photos, talk to other travellers, and buy souvenirs. For many people virtual tourism is no longer a social event and the interaction with other people that they see as part of the experience is lost along with the spontaneity of the experience and the element of surprise. There is also still an element of worry among virtual tourists about online privacy and when booking hotels or holidays online they are concerned about giving out credit card details and other personal information. The positive effects of becoming a virtual tourist is that you no longer experience the down side to travel such as jet lag. People that become a virtual tourist are able to visit different places before visiting them to make sure that it is the right place for them therefore allowing a preview of a destination, which may enhance customer satisfaction. Virtual tourism could also become a surrogate for travel that may help the disabled and elderly. Many people believe that virtual tourism could allow tourism to become a much "greener" activity. The thinking behind this view is that virtual tourism and the World Wide Web can provide tourism experiences in peoples own homes, this could reduce their desire to travel further a field for leisure experiences and therefore limit the damage to the environment caused by tourists.