NEW YORK--Emerging Technologies are re-creating the travel distribution system, and travel agents who do not begin participating now will fail, according to travel technology consultant James Montgomery.

Industry experts speculate that only 15% of existing agencies may survive the changes that new technology will bring in the next five years, said Montgomery, President of the Montgomery Group, in Las Vegas. Agents, especially those serving corporate travelers, have much to consider about their role in the new digital marketplace, said Montgomery, who devises strategies to help agencies adapt their businesses to the changes.

For starters, the Internet is mistakenly referred to as the "information superhighway," he said, when it actually is more like a small lane, although it can provide information to traveling workers virtually worldwide.

"It provides another avenue for marketing, but as more and more shingles are hung on this digital pike, I don't see it as the ultimate answer," he said.

It is "just an interim step until the other lanes are completed," Montgomery said. One of the most significant other "lanes" on the highway, he said, is the fiber-optic network that will

bring interactive television and video-conferencing into homes and offices worldwide.

Instead of an agency setting up an on-site office with a corporate client, the agency could supply interactive travel data that allows customers to search for availability.

Then the client could use computer commands to have a travel agent appear "live" on the screen for a video conference to complete the booking, Montgomery said.

At that point, the agent would be able to view what the client had selected or considered already, he added.

Using this technology, agencies could serve multiple clients from one site, rather than just one corporate client at an on-site location, he said.

Another "lane" is the wireless communications network, which includes personal digital assistants (PDAs) and laptop computers.

"This technology will work at home, in an office, on a boat, airplane or in the middle of a field in Botswana.

"People will no longer have to worry about adapters, protocols and power sources," Montgomery said.

Today, PDA users can receive messages from their offices anywhere in North American and the Caribbean, and, in the next few years, in

Europe and Asia, too, he said.

He gave an example of how this technology has assisted him in his business travels.

On a flight from Los Angeles to Frankfurt via Chicago, Montgomery received a message from his office on his handheld Newton PDA, saying that the flight from Chicago had been canceled, that his office had booked him on another carrier and that he should go straight to that carrier's counter upon arrival.

As the plane landed, the crew announced the cancellation, telling passengers to go to the carrier's counter to make other arrangements.

"There was this huge herd of people scrambling to get to the counter first, but I walked over to Delta and right up to the counter and was reticketed and on my way," Montgomery said.

"Now that's mobile technology at its best when properly applied for the traveling consumer."

Agencies should form partnerships to sell PDAs to corporate clients, he said, many of whom do not know how the technology could benefit them.

"Agents should get into marketing this stuff. Consumers will pay for it.

Agents should stop looking at the supplier side [for commissions] and go to the consumer side," he said.