AsiaTravel.com

Background:

As technology advances, online businesses have been sprouting due to ease of initial establishment of websites and extensive coverage of consumers globally. Companies which wish to engage in intensive online business are gradually catching up by collaborating with a third-party, commonly known as a transaction broker.

A transaction broker functions by extending a business platform between consumers and the companies, potentially creating sales opportunity for the companies. They usually operate with their own websites, and provide substantial information of the companies which they are liaising with. This relationship does not take place with only one company, but with many other companies which are usually in the same industry. A common layman term, “business agent” is actually a real reflection of functions of transaction brokers.

Introduction:

What is a transaction broker? From our understanding, a transaction broker acts as an intermediary of the sellers and buyers. They do not own any of the products the sellers are providing. They are simply acting as a bridge between the buyers and sellers and also assistance to the sales.

As such, a transaction broker we are going to look into in this research is AsiaTravel.com.

The purpose of Asia Travel is to provide online service like booking of hotels and flights. It offers a wide range of discounted hotels and flights for consumers to choose from. Also, it provides other services like group travel and golf travel for consumers. As such, convenience is present to the consumers as they could book hotels and flights without leaving their home.

Design:


Above is the homepage of Asia Travel. As we could see, the homepage is rather packed with words and pictures. It would seem rather confusing to consumers at first glance. However, after navigating a while, consumers will find that the homepage is actually very convenient.

Last minute booking of flights and hotels could be done on the left side of the homepage while promotions could be seen at the right. All the links are available at the homepage which means that consumers do not have to go to pages to pages to find the information they needed.

Strength:

Easy navigation

Asiatravel.com, like how its name constitute, position itself as a transaction platform for consumers whose main interest falls in hotel reservation. Although it has almost 80% of the hotels in Asia, Asiatravel did not limit themselves to only Asia region, but also cater to tourists travelling to America and Europe. Life is easier with the categorisation of hotels according to countries and areas, as shown below.


By categorising the hotels, users can just click the relevant country and area which they are heading, and this saves time and effort. Users do not have to activate the search engine to locate their preferred hotels because once the users selected the country and area; the page would list the hotels available according to alphabetic order or location. For example, if users are looking for a hotel in Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur in the Bukit Bintang area, all hotels which are located in the Bukit Bintang area will appear a click away.

One-stop “virtual shop”

Unlike the common hotel transaction broker, Asiatravel provide an extra mile by, cooperating with airlines, providing an all-rounded service for tourists. Even if the price might not be up to expectation, users are still able to have an additional piece of information when making price comparison. Tour services such as, group travelling or golf travelling are also extensive services provided by Asiatravel.

Vast selection of currency

Users are able to select their respective currency when making reservations, which enables them to make decisions more effectively as they are dealing with familiar currencies.


Weakness

Asiatravel deploy a few basic colours, revolving around with white, blue and orange colour. Users' initial impression may be tainted by this simple outlook of the website, as it seems to be lacking of professionalism with the inadequate choice of colours and limited interaction. Therefore, Asiatravel should consider a major revamp of their website by adding flash or basic animation, or simply injecting some bright and catchy colours like red or yellow.

Security

Asiatravel pledge to withhold their data securely at all times, with the use of "Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)" technology. SSL and Transport Layer Security (TLS) are cryptographic protocols that provide security for communication over the internet, to prevent tampering and message forgery. Therefore, credit card transaction and personal information are secured.

In addition, Asiatravel has preserved the utmost security by obtaining a digital certificate from Thawte, a recognized industry leader, which protect the interest of online users.

Privacy

Asiatravel.com remains the owner of any information collected on the web site and has no future intention to change this policy. They have mentioned that the disclosure of information are only limited to relevant parties, such as hotels and airlines, and users can be assured that their personal information are kept confidential as they do not sell, rent, or otherwise trade any personal information from guests to any party for marketing purposes. Revealing of information will only be done when required to do so by law, court order or law enforcement, and only at times when they feel that disclosure are necessary to protect the properties of Asiatravel and users. Therefore, users’ can travel and book with a piece of mind with Asiatravel.

Conclusion

Transaction brokers are inevitably growing, especially with the state-of-the art technology that we are experiencing. Travelling with big names like Octopus Travel, or Pricebreaker, is now made hassle-free. However, users should be aware that not all transaction brokers are reliable, and therefore, it’s still up to the responsibility of the users to ensure that the brokers are trustworthy by reviewing on the testimonials or feedback from past users.