Human Interaction with Technology and Information

Description of data:

· Travelocity’s URL: www.travelocity.co

· It is an online travel agency that operates mainly for US customer, but also offers services in Canada, Germany, France, UK and Scandinavian countries. (Any customer from around the world is offered services, but operators and headquarters are in the US. Therefore, if experiencing a technical problem, the customer needs to call a US phone number or send mail to a US address).

· It allows customers to book their travels, by offering services for vacation packages, flights, hotels, and ground-transportation. Cruise, last minute packages and activities. Sub services are offered for each of these services.

Why is this data interesting?

· Traveling is a part of everyone’s life, every once in a while. Travelocity allows traveling services for anyone from anywhere, because when searching for the services offered, the customer can enter the amount of money that they are willing to pay/can afford, before getting back any results for the searches. Some people also do not have access to traveling agencies. This solves that issue for customers who want to book a last minute travel, or for customers who do not have a readily available access to a travel agency. For these instances, Travelocity is the perfect choice.

· It caters the traveling needs for all customers, from all parts of the world, who wish to travel anywhere across the world.

· It shows what are the hottest traveling destinations

· It offers travel services to all types of people, e.g. Newlyweds, gay and lesbian, etc.

· It shows all the up to date hottest (most affordable) traveling deals.

· For each result, pricing, images, and rating are offered, elaboration on the result is offered, comparisons with other related results are also provided. (In the case of hotel, location is also provided).This allows the customers to make their perfect choice.

· For the clueless customers who just want a getaway, trip ideas services are offered.

· The stages of the process of booking a trip are shown in real time. This allows the customer to understand what he or she is doing.

How can we obtain the data?

· Data can be obtained from the Travelocity website (provided above).

· Data is arranged in a very straightforward, simple way. Services are ordered by the Dewey Decimal System: services and subservices. For each service shown, there is a link. When clicking on the link the beginning of the booking process for that specific service begins.

· For new customers who do not know how to get around the site and are “afraid” to explore it, on the front page, the mostly used services are bounded in a box (which takes about a quarter of the page. Therefore, it is hard to miss it). This box allows beginning the searches for these services in a simple way.

· On the other side of the page, hot packages, top rated destinations and special offers are provided.

· Here is an example when using the bounded box for services:

Ø I clicked on the hotel option, because I only want to make a booking for a hotel. Then picked country to be Jamaica (because that is where I want to go to). I picked the destination to be Negril. I picked my check in to be on November 21^st and check out to be on November 25^th. I picked the option of 1 room for two adults. Then, I clicked Search Now

Ø Results are shown on the same tab, in a new page. Results show the hotels available, their pricing, their rating (number of stars). More elaborations for each hotel is given as well. I decided to pick Riu Tropical Bay, from the list provided. I clicked on the Select button.

Ø On a new page a get the price ratings for what I picked before, per night. I am pleased, so I click the Select button again.

Ø I review the information provided on the next page. Everything seems OK. I continue to the next page where I put in my personal information (as well as my credit card number in order to pay).

Ø When booking is done, a confirmation will be sent to my email address. The confirmation will have to be printed and then I will have a reservation to Riu in Negril.

What specific questions the data will/can answer?

· Can I fly from Newark Airport to Honolulu, Hawaii, during December, for less than $500?

· Can Hedonism II in Jamaica accommodate a family of two parents and two kids, during the Thanksgiving break?

· What services does each hotel offer and where is it located?

· Can I catch the Continental Airlines flight from JFK to Tel Aviv tomorrow?

· What 7 day cruises go around the Caribbean are offered for two people, under $2000 for the month of February?

· Which countries acquire US Passport and/or Visa? (And many more…)

*Not all results in Travelocity are accurate, for e.g. when searching for hotels in Negril, Jamaica, results for hotels in Ocho Rios, Jamaica were also given.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 1:59 am and is filed under Data project. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.