Website set to be first destination for travellers

A new research tool for Irish holidaymakers has been launched on the web by two Internet consultants from Northern Ireland which is designed to allow the user to become their own travel agent.

Jim Kennedy, a former executive of one of the north's leading transatlantic tour operators, and Dr Tony Crockford, who specialised in web-development following research into IT applications at Queen’s University spent almost 14 months in the creating Holiday-Special.com. The pair believe that the website "turns the ordinary internet user into a specialised travel agent".

By clicking on to www.holiday-special.com users can compare up-to-the-minute offers of almost 45 tour operators and over 12 million holidays, and book it through a call centre. Holidaymakers can also check on airport parking, car-hire arrangements and select a hotel or villa from over 50,000 possible facilities available on the net.

The system is "transparent" and the web designers have aimed to provide a database accessing a fuller range of options that would be available to the average high-street travel agent.

Mr Kennedy said: "Firstly, the site offers a completely impartial selection of travel offers over-riding any commission-linked options. Secondly it automatically interrogates tour-operators' systems on an instantaneous basis - as soon as a deal becomes available on any tour operator’s system our website will have access to it. Traditional travel agents have to trawl through the systems on a hit or miss basis."

The designers believe the website will "revolutionise travel bookings… (as it) is the only one on the Internet especially tuned to the needs of the holiday-maker in Ireland - North or South – with departures from all major airports including Belfast, City of Derry and Dublin".

(GMcG)