Introduction

Hotels.com is a global provider of hotel accommodation, facilitating its worldwide users in searching for an accommodation relative to their place-of-visit, budget, etc. It also aids users by offering reservation services through its own network of localised websites and telephone call centres unique to each country.

Hotels.com was originally known as Hotel Reservations Network (HRN) and was founded in 1991 by David Litman and Bob Diener as a telephone service, offering consumers discounted hotel room rates in major cities. In 2002, HRM introduced the website Hotels.com, and it was such a hit that the company’s name was henceforth changed to Hotels.com.

Having an extensive selection of accommodation on the net, all conglomerated into one single website coupled with information, pictures etc of each hotel, Hotels.com is thus a one-stop shopping source for hotel pricing, amenities and availability. They also specialise in providing accommodation during sold-out periods!

Purpose
Originally founded as a telephone service to offer hotel reservation services, Hotels.com’s purpose is thus also to provide reservation services to customers on a global scale. With the summarised information of over 100,000 global accommodation spots, coupled with pricing details, pictures, details on its location, reviews from other travellers, it thus provides a hassle free search for travellers from all over the world.

Features

Business Model

Hotel.com base itself on 2 categories of e-Commerce; Business to Business Model (B2B) and Business to Customer Model (B2C).

Hotel.com does not own the hotels but provides a platform to ease transactions between hotels and travellers from all over the world. This not only helps increase richness, but also the accessibility between businesses and customers.

The different hotels are categorized under countries, cities, and nearest landmarks so that a list of nearest hotels available is listed out and can be sorted according to online ratings, prices, distances etc, depending on customers’ preferences. All transactions must be consistent with any applicable legal rules and terms & conditions.

Payment Scheme

Upon deciding on the choice of hotel, customers are directed to the booking form, where they are required to enter their particulars, room preferences. Information such as travel dates and prices are available on the right column so that customers can double check on their selections easily.

Below are the credit cards Hotel.com accepts. All the information are secured under Geotrust, which we will elaborate further on under security.



Design
The design of the website is systematic, neat and relatively easy to navigate around.

By typing a desired location or landmark on the search bar, a list of accommodation follows.


Each hotel has a brief introduction, guest star ratings, distance from city centre, a brief amenities checklist, and the average nightly rate. If you’re interested in a particular hotel, you can then proceed to reserve a room there by clicking select, which will then lead you to detailed page of the hotel, inclusive of different tabs for description, photos, maps, reviews.

Upon selection of BOOK IT, you’re then directed to a page in which after a simple form to fill in, and the details of a credit card number, your reservation is good-to-go, and you can expect to arrive at your designated area with a hotel room ready for you.
With the design being so simple and easy to navigate, this website truly is well designed for a hassle-free booking experience for any traveller.





Strengths

Ease-of-search
Simply by typing a desired location or landmark, suggestions will appear, and clicking on them will lead you to a list of accommodation available around that location.

Ease-of-comparison between hotels
Upon clicking desired location, the list of accommodation, will be coupled with ratings from other users, distance from city centre, a brief list of amenities, average nightly rate per person.
All these aid users in choosing between hotels based on their various concerns.



Also, a map-view comparison of the hotels is available, for users whose primary concern is location.

Ease-of-available-information
All these information are readily available on Hotels.com, and are just clicks away.


Ease-of-contact-and-customer-service
With 58 localised websites in local language and local currency terms, they are thus very personalised and efficient in tending to the needs of their customers on a local scale. For example, Singapore.hotels.com will have the accommodation prices stated in Singapore dollars. The toll-free number available on the Singapore.hotels.com site would also be one situated in Singapore, directed to help Singapore customers.

Sites available
http://singapore.hotels.com/ 800 1205131
http://australia.hotels.com/ 1300 733 808
http://www.hotels.cn/ (in Chinese) 8008982388
http://www.hotels.fr/ (in French) 01 57 32 33 96 etc

Ease-of-finding-customer-reviews
Unlike some sites in which customer reviews are not available, Hotels.com has customer reviews of the hotel on its site itself! This allows users to easily see the hotel from the view of a customer, instead of having to search for an external forum.

Weaknesses
Firstly, being an online transaction broker, it is inevitable for hotel room rates to be higher than the actual rates provided by the hotel itself. This is due to the fact that Hotels.com is a middleman and needs to earn the commission to keep the business going and provide services to its customers. Hotels.com allows access to its extensive hotel reports without commitment from customers. Thus, some customers may make use of the detailed hotel information provided by the website and then reserve the hotel rooms themselves.
Secondly, even though Hotels.com provides an adequate number of photos of each hotel, but it is not explained which room each picture depicts. Customers may mistake a suite for the deluxe room through photos and thus be disappointed when they learn the truth.

Security

Billing and payment at Hotel.com is secured by Geotrust, a large digital certificate provider. GeoTrust offers a range of value-priced SSL certificates with fast delivery. SSL are cryptographic protocols that provide security for communications over networks such as the Internet. It prevents eavesdropping, tampering, and message forgery. More than 100,000 customers in over 150 countries trust GeoTrust to secure online transactions and conduct business over the Internet and thus customers feel safer making payments online.

Privacy
Hotels.com addresses the issue of trust by having a Privacy Statement. The Privacy Statement addresses, what information is collected, how it is used, with whom it may be shared with, what choices are available regarding collection, use and distribution of the information, what security procedures are involved to help protect these information, how notification of material changes to this Privacy Statement is done, and when the Privacy Statement becomes effective. This safeguards personal information which customers are required to key in whilst making a transaction.

Conclusion

On the whole, Hotels.com is a good platform for transactions between hotels and customers (B2C) and is a good example of a transaction broker. A transaction broker is an interface in which assists buyers, sellers, or both during the transaction without explicitly representing the interests of either party. These organisations save time and resources for both parties. Hotels.com thus allows the hotels involved to focus on providing good services for their customers and allows customers to also benefit from this hassle free network as there is no need to research for various hotels from various sites and risk getting conned by dishonest organizations.