Information Communication Technology (ICT) brings about many changes
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Introduction
People are unaware that they are in contact with information communication technology (ICT) around them every day. ICT refers to the technologies which are built into organizational information systems, and these technologies support various ways at handling, communicating, consolidating and processing information. It has actually brought many changes and provides support to organizational activities, societies, and also our lives. As ICT allows organizations to change the ways in which they operate, we need to understand how organizations use their technologies to develop their own information activities in order to achieve their organization goals.
The main objective of this report is to perform a research on how ICT has changed hotel room reservation services. A hotel reservation service allows customers to place bookings on rooms in advance that satisfy their preferences to guarantee their stay for the period of their vacations. During the present days, hotel reservation service is no longer performed in the traditional way as ICT has completely transformed the whole hotel reservation system. Today hotel reservation service is very efficient and convenient.
Past System
In the past, people goes through the traditional route of booking a hotel over the phone and often they managed to obtain little or limited information. Usually, they can successfully get a hold of a hotel room either through agency or recommendation from friends or relatives. Besides that, some customers actually book a room through a walk in basis on the day of their arrival. However this may be inconvenient at times as hotels are usually fully booked during peak season. Customers end feeling disappointed and has to search for hotels elsewhere. Thus, hotel reservation is very time consuming, inconvenient and costly in the past.
Present System
With the presence of advance technology, hotel reservation service is now available online and this greatly influences the way customers shop and perform hotel reservation. With online hotel reservation services, customers now have access to a lot of information and have varieties of hotel to choose from, ranging from the best bargain. When customers use the online hotel reservation services, they can select from any hotel located in different countries that they plan to visit and browse the website for in-depth information on availability, pricing, room type, services offered and promotions. Through the online hotel reservation services, customers can view past experience and reviews from the guests of the hotel.
Most hotels have applied technology to their reservation system which enables customers to make room reservation through their online hotel reservation services offered on their website. Besides that, there are several online travel agent website that have been developed over the years which offer services to assist customers in the search and bookings of hotels. This websites uses computerized online system which stores and distributes information on hotels, resorts or other lodging facilities. These websites offers a variation of information such as hotel information, nearby cities and airports, onsite or nearby restaurants, attractions and recreational activities.
Examples of such websites are such as asiarooms.com, hotels.com, ctrip.com, asia-travel.com, zuji.com, holidayInn.com and many more. We have chosen zuji.com and asiarooms.com for our research in order to study if there are any differences in their hotel reservation services.
Zuji.com
Zuji.com is an online travel agent dedicated to bringing great value travel choices to travelers in Asia Pacific. It offer inspiring holidays at great rates online. It brings a choice of more than 400 airlines, 63,000 hotels, car rentals and travel insurance to travelers. Zuji.com has tried to differentiate itself by offering customers a saving of $100 average per trip and many other promotions. One of the promotions is a saving of up to 50% for last-minute hotel reservation. Moreover, one of the good things about the site is that the confirmation for reservation will be given in an instant and there is no credit card fee. Also, there is no hidden cost – prices include all taxes and fuel surcharges.
When customers are offered some hotels to stay in, they will be given some information on each hotels term/condition to get a price discount. Once they have already chosen the preferred hotel, then more in-depth information on that particular hotel will be displayed to the customer. Customers can obtain information such as the hotel’s description, photos, map, independent traveler’s reviews, etc. The customers may read Zuji.com's independent-travelers-reviews (such as TripAdvisor), and use each hotel’s star ratings to help them make the right decision before they check in. Location maps are also provided to help them to explore the places and facilities available around the hotel vicinity such as nearby restaurants, shopping centers, transportation services or even sight-seeing attractions. And most importantly, it shows customers the hotels that are available, and they can be assured to get the instant confirmation for their hotel booking.
Additionally in the website, there are some other helpful services that they administer such as flight ticket booking, car hire, activities booking, and travel insurance. For the flight ticket booking, Zuji.com shows all inclusive pricing on the flight search results page and the breakdown of the fares and taxes before booking is confirm. With this service offered, customers can now enjoy total freedom and flexibility in choosing their preferred travel schedules. Apart from that, Zuji.com has some flexible payment options. You can pay online through your credit card, or call the Customer Service Centre to provide the credit card details. Alternatively, customers can also pay in person at the Zuji.com ticketing office. The online payment at Zuji.com is secured by VeriSign, the global leader in online security for e-commerce payments.
Furthermore, making travel arrangements with Zuji.com doesn't require any unnecessary travelling because Zuji.com will deliver the tickets to the customer at a local address, absolutely free. But it charges a small fee for an overseas courier.
For its customer care, Zuji.com is accessible 7 days a week by phone at 6246 1234 from 8am to 8pm on Mon to Fri, and 9am to 5pm on Sat to Sun. Alternatively; customers can drop their enquiries by sending an email to customercare@zuji.com.sg.
AsiaRooms.com
AsiaRooms.com is a leading online accommodation site in Asia offering deals in over 36,000 properties worldwide, including 7,000 hotels in the Asia-Pacific region ranging from individual beach huts to 5-star hotels and sprawling villas. AsiaRooms.com works with all types of accommodation providers from large hotel chains, to independent hotels, apartments and guesthouses. AsiaRooms.com are not responsible for uploading the hotel rates, availability and hotels information as this functions are performed by the respective providers themselves. AsiaRooms.com specializes in securing the best deals and making them available to everyone. The contemporary and inspirational online platform is styled for those seeking more interesting hotel options over the bland, obvious choices.
AsiaRooms.com offers customers a saving of up to 70 percent off the normal room rate for a variety of independent and branded hotels. Customers can book online or by phone 24/7, whether booking 12 months or 12 minutes in advance, whatever time, whatever day. Once booking is completed, customers will receive confirmation email within 10minutes confirming all the booking details. The benefit of booking through AsiaRooms.com is such that they do not charge the customers any booking fee, cancellation fee or modification fee. As AsiaRooms.com only acts as a booking agent in respect of all bookings they makes on customer’s behalf, they do not take payment from their customers. The credit card details requested for every booking is just to secure the room and the customers pay the hotel on arrival or departure. The price shown on the website will be the price that the customers pay and there will not be any additional cost or charges. Users can read from over 150,000 true hotel reviews written by customers who have booked through AsiaRooms.com and actually stayed at the hotel.
Customers may amend or cancel his or her booking in accordance with the hotel’s policy which is stated on the hotel details page or on the booking confirmation email. So if the customer failed to amend or cancel their bookings in accordance with the hotel’s cancellation policy, then additional charges might be incurred. Payment will also be charged to the credit card or debit card if the customer fail to arrive at the hotel and the customer have not cancelled their reservation. The accommodation providers on AsiaRooms.com accept credit or debit cards which include Visa, MasterCard and American Express for the mode of payment. Some accommodation providers offer special pre-pay rates that are often discounted more than usual. However, these rates will be charged to the customer’s card at the time of booking and usually cannot be cancelled or amended.
AsiaRooms.com allows customers to choose the type of currency to display the rates of hotel rooms, but the currency which the customer makes payment will be the currency of the country where the chosen hotel is located. Due to the fluctuating nature of currency exchange, the room rates may differ day to day, however, the customers will be paying based on the price of the booking during the confirmation. All rates vary greatly between each hotel, especially what is actually included in the offer price. For example, some price includes room only without breakfast or inclusive of both bed and breakfast. Before a customer confirm his booking, he need to check on the hotel’s details page on what is included in the price they pay. All transactions that are done during the booking process are done on a secure server. The details are protected by the latest SSL (Secure Socket Layer) technology, which is independently certified by Global sign. Any information entered into the online booking page or given over the phone is securely encrypted, thus protects customer’s personal information from being tampered with and protecting customer account from any fraudulent charges.
Limitations of using online reservation services:
- As accommodation providers have complete control over their rates, availability and managing their own information, if they do not provide the most-up-to-date details, then customers may be getting outdated information.
- Any special request made online are sent to the hotel but cannot be guaranteed.
- Some payments are paid at the time of booking and usually cannot be canceled or amended. At times, customers may cancel it but it is very hard to get back their money.
- Although online transaction has been encrypted, there is still risk and many possibilities as with advance technology, people may come out with devices which can break into the online system and get the customers’ credit cards information. This may lead to crime like credit card fraud. According to Wikipedia, Credit card fraud is a wide-ranging term for theft and fraud committed using a credit card or any similar payment mechanism as a fraudulent source of funds in a transaction. The purpose may be to obtain goods without paying, or to obtain unauthorized funds from an account. Credit card fraud is also an adjunct to identity theft. The costs of card fraud in 2006 were 7 cents per 100 dollars worth of transactions (7 basis points). Due to the high volume of transactions this translates to billions of dollars. In 2006, fraud in the United Kingdom alone was estimated at £535 million, or US$750–830 million at prevailing 2006 exchange rates.
Hotels reviews websites
It's all well and good to read guidebook reviews and study hotel Web sites, but often the most valuable information about a hotel comes from other travelers just like you. That's where sites like TripAdvisor, Virtual Tourist and MyTravelGuide comes in.
These sites (and many others, including the major booking engines) offer honest hotel ratings and reviews straight from the mouths of real travelers. This is where you can read about how the staff behaves, get an idea of how clean the rooms are and learn whether the wireless Internet connection actually works. Many sites also allow users to post photos of their hotel -- which are usually more realistic and less glamorous than the professional snapshots you'll see on the hotel's own Web site.
Besides that, these advisory websites also contain reviews on the customer’s previous booking experience with the online agents (zuji.com, asiarooms.com, etc). Customers will share advice and information on how is the reliability of such agents in handling their booking request. Some comments could be positive ones such as easy booking, convenient and able to book in confidence with the reliable and secured services. While some could be negative ones such as difficulty in processing the booking, long waiting time to secure the booking due to network traffic or system breakdown, room provided on arrival is different from the confirmation booking and customer’s has cancelled according to cancellation’s policy but money is not refundable.
Of course, it's always a good idea to take traveler reviews with a certain degree of skepticism. Overly fawning reviews may actually have been written by hotel employees in disguise, while some negative reviews may come from super-fussy travelers who simply have an ax to grind or could even be from the competitors trying to affect the image of the hotel. But despite the occasional misleading review, most traveler ratings are an honest, unbiased and invaluable resource when deciding between hotels.
Conclusion
As we all know, Information Communication Technology (ICT) has, in the last few years, changed the way customer’s shop and book hotels. With ICT, customers can gain easy and up-to-date access to a lot of information and have a multitude of hotels to choose from. By booking a hotel with the online reservation services is a great and effective way of planning vacations. Customers can take their time to find the best prices that suit their budget and book in confidence instead of wasting time and money booking through the traditional route. Despite the many advantages that ICT has brought about to the online hotel reservation services, the main issue of concern is the security and privacy of the customer’s credit card information. So, the online service providers need to provide full protection and security towards the customer’s privacy to ensure that fraud transaction will not occur. As there are always many new emerging technologies, the online service providers need to ensure that their website is constantly up to date with the latest technology so that they can provide the best and secured booking services.
