web site focus

web site focus

Every fortnight FSS marketing director Ian Champness picks an Internet site and looks at how useful it is for travel agents

Did you know?The size of the Internet

&#42 A study completed by Inktomi and the NEC Research Institute in January of this year estimated that the Web had grown to more than one billion unique pages with 86.55% of documents in English. A more recent study conducted by Cyveillance revealed in July that 2.1 billion unique publicly available pages exist on the Internet. The study found that the Internet is growing at an explosive rate of more than seven million pages a day – it will double in size by early next year.

&#42 Other findings include:

1. The average size of Internet pages is 10,060 bytes

2. The average number of internal links per page is 23

3. The average number of external links per page if 5.6

4. The average number of images on a page is 14.4

5. The percentage of US versus international pages is 84.7% to 15.3%

&#42 A study completed by Inktomi and the NEC Research Institute in January of this year estimated that the Web had grown to more than one billion unique pages with 86.55% of documents in English. A more recent study conducted by Cyveillance revealed in July that 2.1 billion unique publicly available pages exist on the Internet. The study found that the Internet is growing at an explosive rate of more than seven million pages a day – it will double in size by early next year.

&#42 Other findings include:

1. The average size of Internet pages is 10,060 bytes

2. The average number of internal links per page is 23

3. The average number of external links per page if 5.6

4. The average number of images on a page is 14.4

5. The percentage of US versus international pages is 84.7% to 15.3%

This week: www.goldmedal.co.uk

Description

Gold Medal Travel introduced its trade-only Web site at www.goldmedal.co.uk in July. The current site represents a major investment and offers an additional communications channel for Gold Medal’s agency network alongside its existing viewdata connections and telephone reservations facilities. The site gives bookable access via Gold Medal’s Farebank database to over three million discounted scheduled airfares on over 100 airlines to more than 1,500 destinations. In addition, the site offers booking facilities for over 4,000 hotels worldwide, supported by detailed on-line information and visuals. The site has a range of on-line administrative support facilities and a brochure request system. A substantial advertising budget is in place for boosting trade awareness of the site.

Home page

The home page is quick to download and well designed, with the Gold Medal logo forming part of the page header, which also contains labelled navigation buttons. Nine colourful icons on a white background occupy the main area, with a margin to the left for access password entry. The colours in the icons are faded until valid passwords are input – a neat convention. The main labels are Farebank, Hotel, Admin, Agent Info, Contact Us and Help. These areas are accessible either via the coloured icons, or via the navigation buttons. The page is clean, businesslike and uncluttered.

Ease of navigation

Access to the system is made straightforward for regular Gold Medal agents, who can use existing viewdata passwords. A telephone number is given directly below the password entry field for those who need to register. From the home page, navigation is offered in two distinct styles. Using the navigation bar, a click on a label reveals several sub-labels. Thus we clicked on Agent Info and saw a clickable sub-menu Insurance, News and Farebanknotes. Using the coloured icon for Agent Info – or any of the topics – meant a short wait for the sub-menu to download, and so was less efficient. Because the navigation bar is present throughout the navigation of topics we quickly took to this style, which was always fast, easy and intuitive.

Ease of searching: flights

Clicking the Farebank menu item or icon yields a search input form. The search for fares is a standard two-step process – enter data and view results. A help icon next to the Destination and Airline fields makes it easy to handle spellings, or check valid input. A list of candidate air fares (in ascending order of price) appears in a frame next to the search input form – excellent and time-saving for repeating, correcting or amending search criteria. The results presentation also enables an easy discussion of alternatives without the need for more searches.

Ease of booking: flights

Each fare has an ‘information’ icon to its right, which gives full and detailed rules. After following a simple intuitive process with good detail, the client has the option to make a firm booking which yields a printable ‘Booking Completion’ page with booking reference and Passenger Number Record. Invoices for confirmed bookings are sent by mail.

Hotel search and booking

Although it was not possible to book more than one room at a time, the site’s hotel booking facility is a delight – a useful inventory, good coverage in popular destinations and simple to use. A clickable world map yields an alphabetical listing properties by region, from which a city can be selected – or the city name can be entered directly into the familiar search fields. The resulting search by date gives a price-order listing of properties based on availability. Selecting ‘Info’ gives full details of the property, booking rules and in most cases pictures of hotel locations and interiors from several angles. Selecting ‘Book’ goes straight to a price summary for the booking, fields to enter names – and one more click confirms the booking. At the time of the review, it was not possible to take options but this is in the pipeline.

Value of information

The site offers lots of information including a news section, special offers and details of its incentive Farebanknotes scheme (very valuable!), contact numbers, a good on-line help facility and links to government health, travel and passport advice.

Site security

Bookings are handled over a secure server and no access is possible without passwords.

Nice touches

The flashing icon denoting ‘Last Room’ in the hotel search and the hotel booking link on the flight ‘Booking Completion’ screen were both neat touches. The pre-formatted subject areas on the e-mail communications form were helpful too.

Would we return to this site?

Yes – the site is gearing itself to the wider requirements of the agent/operator relationship, with powerful administration and information tools in addition to the ‘core’ requirements of selling inventory.