There's little doubt that business technology infrastructure is reaching for the cloud;

In the travel industry, hardware scalability is ideal for seasonal changes in demand. Global coverage carries a premium. Travel – like communications, retail and entertainment – is grappling with the sudden need for multi-device environments. And telecommuting has taken off.

All this plays right into the cloud. Yet, there is hesitancy for several reasons, including fears about protection of personal customer data.

Any effort to take customer data off premises requires extreme caution, and some travel firms just won't do it. This eliminates one of the potential benefits of cloud computing – outsourcing data risk.

Another oft-cited benefit is cost savings, but there isn't as much saved when internal data centers are in their prime. Legacy modernization projects need tremendous justification.

Rather than rejecting the cloud outright for these reasons, many firms are looking to take advantage of it where they can – because there are just too many benefits to ignore.

This Analysis highlights uses of cloud computing in travel, assesses its limits and discusses its impacts.

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