Farebase.co.uk

Review by Adrian Mann, owner of Adrian Mann Design, providing independent reviews and analysis of travel web sites in the UK.

Farebase was established in 1989, providing airfares information via its database software, and were quick to realise the potential of using low cost PC’s to distribute the information to agents. The Farebase portal has recently undergone a facelift, and has had many changes made to its navigation, layout, while retaining all the functionality. However, this means that all but the latest versions of Explorer or Navigator aren’t supported. This is detected by the site, which then offers links to download newer versions of either Explorer or Navigator. Other browsers need not apply!

Overall
You’ll need to be registered in order to use the site fully. First impressions are of a site that’s packed full of useful stuff – the home page is busy, with links to all the areas of the site, banner ads, offers and information. It also appears that a lot of Javascript is employed in order to provide the site with menus and scrolling text areas on the page, but this makes the pages much larger, and therefore slower to load.

Content
The main areas of the site are accessible via drop-down menus contained in a bar at the top of the page. These include Online Bookings, Data Searches, Product Information, Useful Links and Support.
‘Online Bookings’ is further divided into Flights, Holidays, Accommodation, Insurance, Car Hire and others. The Flights booking page employs the usual Farebase booking engine, which is well laid out and offers a comprehensive set of features. Results are usually returned quickly, with a good level of detail. Most of the other areas link to other sites, e.g. E-hoteldirect and Totalstay.com for hotels, Holidayautos or Hertz for car hire, Fred Olsen for cruises.
Booking Holidays involves making multiple selections from the menu, for instance, suppose you were looking for a holiday in Europe. First select Holidays, then Packages, the Europe, then either Hoseasons or Supabreak. whose sites then appear in new windows. Sounds simple, but in practice it requires a fair degree of skill to keep the pointer on the menu as the submenus pop out, and even then, the colours used tend to be similar to the background colours, making it easy to miss or move off the menu, so you have to start over. This particularly applies to items that require 3 or 4 selections, such as holidays or cruises.
‘Data Searches’ provides access to just about any information you could want for travel suppliers, from airline information to fare searches, airport information or news items.
You’ll also find information on Farebase products, such as Farebase Express, airfares and suppliers’ databases, or the popular Internet booking engine. The news section includes up-to-date items of interest to agents, and there’s also a support section, with help and advice on downloading datafiles, email support and how to get training in order to get the best out of the online bookings section.

Summary
I’m sure Farebase spent a lot of time and effort on the new site, and I wish I could say it had been completely successful. It seems many sites go down the same route – they have a successful, if basic site, and then ‘improve’ it – and in the process make it less accessible. Requiring users to upgrade their browsers in order to use the site doesn’t make a lot of sense, as the latest versions are frequently unstable or bug-ridden, and will require updates to fix the bugs or patch security holes, something which Microsoft in particular are notorious for. Overall, it makes the site slower to load, harder to use, and more likely to go wrong. And don’t even try using the site if you have a Mac.
Remember that this is a site that is going to be used by Travel Agents, who just need the quickest and easiest way of getting to the information they want – anything else just gets in the way. There’s a large amount of information here, and many useful services that have become ubiquitous in the travel industry. I really like the site and the valuable services it provides, but whether its latest incarnation offers tangible benefits to the users is open to question.