Asian Hotel & Catering Times

June 1999 Issue

Reservation Revolution

Danny Cheung reports on how one Hong Kong-based IT company has taken the pain out of making hotel reservations for hotels and holidaymakers

Reserving a hotel room through the Internet is nothing new a glut of hotel web sites, particularly in the US, already contain the functions holidaymakers need to make reservations online. The problem facing Internet users is how to find relevant data from such a large haystack of information. Even with the fastest computer hardware, many users still spend countless hours searching the world-wide web for specific sites with little or no direction, particularly when they search for information on hotels in Asia Pacific. "Our goal was to create a simple one-stop, no-nonsense web site that presents all the relevant details on Asian hotels to make reservations quick and painless," says Jon Stonham, founder and marketing director of asia-hotels.com, who hit upon the idea to create a centralised web site when he worked for a major telecommunications company in Hong Kong.

Asia-wide Network

Since the company started up two years ago, its database has amassed over 6,500 hotels and resorts from no less than 16 Asian Pacific countries, including Australia, Burma, China, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan and Vietnam. Nowadays, asia-hotels.com makes around 3,000 confirmed reservations for over 1,000 Asia Pacific hotels each month, with over half-a-million visitors to its web site http://www.asiahotels.com. The web site is the most comprehensive of its kind in Asia, and the selection of hotels that appears on screen can, at times, run to hundreds. But a key field search facility using location, price range, hotel chain, hotel type, or hotel amenities and facilities makes elimination easy, and users can also view rooms at a click of a button.

According to Stonham, the Internet has given people the independence and freedom to plan their own holidays, and they are no longer totally reliant on a third party to help them find what they want. This cuts down on costs and makes it easier to meet users' expectations. The web site, which fully utilises existing online database technology, offers a number of solutions to the holidaymaker, including 24-hour access, categorised and sorted information, free online usage, and a easy-to-use interface.

Hotels have benefited as well: the database was developed at a time when Asian hotels were seeking ways to cut down on costs while seeking effective ways to channel information further abroad. As Stonham explains, "Costs are only incurred by hotels when reservations are confirmed, so hotels can post as many deals as they want on our web site, which are updated on a daily basis." All the hotels that appear on the web site offer discounts, ranging from 5 per cent to 50 per cent of normal rates on standard rooms.

"To date, travellers from the US provide about 30 per cent of asia-hotels.com's business, while those from Europe make up most of the rest a boon to small hotels that don't have much reach," he says.

Many postings come from large hotel chains like Holiday Inn, Sofitel, Novotel and the Hyatt, but a large proportion of lower-end hotels are available to the budget traveller. Today, the web site holds any quantity of 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-star properties that are regularly visited by asia-hotels.com, and reviewed and rated accordingly.

Although many countries in the East are slow to adopt IT developments, Stonham believes that online reservation will become commonplace once the Internet becomes more stable and secure. "There is a huge potential for hotel transactions of this sort, given that 30 per cent of business is already done electronically," says Stonham. "As networks become faster and computer ownership increases, the services that can be provided over the Internet will be endless."

Danny Cheung