Traveler's Aid: Spies for You and Me (4/26/2002)

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Sure, business travelers have had access to precise -- albeit, expensive -- information about the places they travel for years...but what about you? What started as a corporate trend in the 1990s has now been made available to the regular traveler, via travel agents.

While once companies employing former espionage people put together custom reports, new companies, like IJet, have teams of specialists with years of experience in various intelligence agencies, in different countries, to give you up-to-the-minute information about the places you plan to visit. Whether there's a protest in London or a transport strike in Paris, they can give you specific information on roads and travel, in general. They also monitor health issues on outbreaks of everything from flu to Ebola.

Diana talks with Joe Sharkey, business travel columnist for "The New York Times," about how this James Bond-esque information has moved from the corporate world to the domain of everyday travelers. IJet Travel Intelligence has a deal with 21,000 travel agents, and the company's basic reports and travel alerts on more than 150 countries are available on travel agent desktops. Now, you too can get "intelligent," critical information for your trip.

Savvy Resources: For more information, go to IJet's Web site: http://www.ijet.com

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