FastBooking.com is a B2C transaction broker that is fast becoming a popular choice among travelers today. Concurrently, it has established itself as the preferred partner to hotelkeepers worldwide given the ability to driving more visitors to hotel websites and converting them into direct bookings. Its businessmodel of optimizing a hotel’s business through utilizing its direct website booking has certainly enabled its client (Hoteliers) to reduce advertising cost significantly thus facilitating them to emphasize on the importance of value pricing to the end customers. On the other hand, the combination of expertise within the hotel industry, leveraging on technology and the willingness to provide extensive contents coverage on hotels worldwide simply sets FastBooking to compete effectively within the ever-evolving E-Commerce industry. Based on latest statistics, FastBooking is being recognized as a hotel website booking solution leader with over 2.6 million room reservations booked in 2008.
FEATURES
Hotel Room Reservation
Secured Payment and Data Protection
Due to the rampant usage of E-Transaction through the Internet by consumers, we are now witnessing an increasing trend of Internet crimes occurring at an alarming rate. Transaction security has therefore become the foremost important aspect that companies are willing to invest in to ensure that the risks are being minimized. At Fastbooking.com, they value the ongoing concerns that its potential customers might have with regards to security transactions. As a result, information gathered will be strictly protected within the secured website. By doing so, the company hopes that users will be given an opportunity to experience a peace of mind when transacting with FastBooking.
Pricing & Rating Comparability
Given the technological advancement in today’s society, human beings are becoming more and more capable to design sophisticated programs to satisfy the complexity of human needs. In FastBooking.com, users are given the option to compare results based on their preferences and priority. Moreover, the information could also be sorted in ascending order depending on the customer needs. This functions are embedded into the E-Transaction platform mainly to ensure that comparison and analysis could the done by potential clients through the most convenient and comprehensive manner.
Hotel Ratings & Customer Reviews
Users are also being presented with customer reviews and hotel ratings so as to enable them to have a preview of the environment without experiencing it on-site. This is important as it allows its customers to have a gauge on what they would be experiencing through the review written by people who had experienced the moment.
Video Tours / Photo Gallery
FastBooking.com Contact
Users are given an avenue to feedback on their thoughts to FastBooking.com in relation to their website. This is important as it provides the company an opportunity to understand and initiate necessary changes to cater to the needs of the ever-evolving market.
Confirmation Email
A confirmation email will be send to the customer’s email account once the room reservation is done. The customer could print out the confirmation mail for the ease of identification by the chosen hotel on the day of arrival. In addition, in order to refresh the memory of busy customers, a reservation email reminder will also be sent to their account 3 days before the date of arrival.
WEBSITE DESIGN
Firstly, navigating through FastBooking.com was never complex as compared to any other conventional hotel reservation websites. Its user-friendly interface and precise result generation distinguishes itself apart from its competitors by miles. The option of allowing customer to compare searched results based on their own preferences, bears testimony on the understanding that FastBooking had upon their consumers.
Secondly, information in relation to the accommodation (e.g. Photos, Video, Facilities, Location & etc) is clustered together within a web page for the ease of viewing. Users could easily finalize the deal by clicking onto the “Red” Book icon to proceed on reservation after the decision making process.
Lastly, its well- organized graphical layout simply enhances the user experience to a great extend. Human beings by nature are more receptive to graphical images as compared to wordings. As a saying goes "A picture speaks a thousand words". In FastBooking, users would notice that there are many graphical images embedded in the website.
Nevertheless, the blending of colors within the website had certainly allow users to experience a sense of tranquility within. Light colors appears mostly on the background settings with darker colors used to capture the attention of users. The relentless drive to understand the psychological aspect of consumers had certainly provided FastBooking that little advantage that stands out from its competitors.
STRENGTHS
- A user-friendly website that caters to people of all ages
- Allows price comparability on various hotels so as to facilitate consumers to analyze and in turn make better decisions
- Provide places of interest within a radius of 10km from the hotel location
- Gets affiliated with various hotel categories (from Budget to 5 Star hotel) thus increasing the choices for potential customers
- Provide visual aids (Photo Gallery & Video Tours) to allow consumers to have an idea of the environment
- Access to customer review on the hotel of interest
- Discount Rate of up to 60%
- No booking fees embedded in price
- No prepayment of fees till the arrival at the hotel
WEAKNESSES
- Failure to specify the room area will certainly create misunderstanding among consumers as space is subjective in they eyes of an individual
- Non-availability of information with regards to places of interest within the country
- Lack of description review within the website thus require a need to search for it in other forums
- Restricted to 5 languages which is insufficient to reach out to the broader market
OTHERS
During the course of conducting our research, we realized that FastBooking.com did address on the cognitive elements that consumers might have upon its business model. Security and Privacy are important issues that one might feel uneasy when transacting over the Internet. The company has taken drastic measures to ensure that data provided by consumers are well preserved by the organization. In addition, a charter was created to inform users on the methods of collecting and processing customer data and statutory rights with accordance to the law. By doing so, FastBooking.com does believe that it will provide a essential psychological effect upon users thus enable them to initiate transaction with peace and confidence.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, our group feels that FastBooking.com does possess all the necessary elements to qualify as a top transaction broker site within the hotelier industry. Apart from providing extensive information and hotel networks for its users, the site was also able to take into account on the possible needs of human analysis such as price comparability, hotel ratings and etc before coming to a final decision. However, we perceive that there are still areas of improvement with regards to the site to enhance the user experience. Overall, we would rate FastBooking.com a 8.5/10 as compared to other transaction broker site.
