Website Of The Week – a2b Travel

http://www.a2btravel.com/

While Condé Nast’s Traveller site (http://www.cntraveller.co.uk/) provides a wealth of editorial information, from travel articles and travellers’ personal diaries to city histories and world news stories, Emap Online’s a2b Travel is the logistical key to getting to these far-flung, exotic locations (or, if you prefer, a B&B trip to Bridlington).

The basis of a2b Travel is to provide as much information as possible for the user to book each aspect of their journey. The site covers all modes of transport (flights, hire cars, cruises, trains and National Express coaches) and allows timetables to be viewed and tickets to be booked. Descriptions of hotels, along with exact room provisions, pricing plans and details of surrounding attractions allow the user to book a hotel as well as transport.

The a2b Travel site is pretty easy to navigate although the numerous selection boxes required to retrieve specific information may be a bit bewildering to those unfamiliar with the system. The most impressive achievement of the site though, is the amount of ‘secondary’ information which Emap Online have managed to integrate with the main body of travel information. By secondary information I mean such things as UK road and street mapping (provided by Multimedia Mapping) which allows an area to be selected by place/street name or postcode and a map and relevant hotel or travel Internet sites are displayed; the location of the hotels and so on are marked on the street map, which itself has varying scales. As well as mapping there are local weather reports, road reports from Vauxhall, the RAC and the AA and a handy currency convertor for overseas trips.

The site’s design is simple and clear making use of both pictorial and text links but is occasionally slow to download data. The only other criticism (apart from the daft name) is that for some ticket information the link takes you to an outside site without a link back to a2b Travel; the coaches and trains links, for example, link to the National Express and Railtrack sites respectively. These gripes however are not sufficient to offset the depth of data and functionality which is available in a2b Travel. Potential travellers should check out Condé Nast’s Traveller for inspiration and then a2b Travel for tickets.