[Editor’s Note: While cleaning through the closet over the weekend, and consolidating old data across about ten disk drives, I came across our very first website: The Cool WAP Site of the Day.com. A long time ago, in an office far, far away, we were publishing and covering first generation websites on cellphones. The birth for The Social Media Monthly really wasn’t in May 2011, it was more like early 2000. We let our domain lapse quite a while back, and some of this can be found on the Internet Archives in bits and pieces. I thought it might be interesting to share one of these very old pieces, and compare them to their great-great-grandchildren. What I continue to find interesting today is many of the best apps out there were originally fantastic ideas developed fifteen years ago. They’re just a lot faster and have way better graphics.]
Originally published: February 1st, 2001
Hotel in Hong Kong
By Grant Hibbs
| NAME – Asia Travel Mart |
| PC URL – www.asiatravelmart.com |
| PHONE URL – www.trvlwap.com |
DESCRIPTION: Asia Travel Mart, the gurus of Asian travel have come out with an excellent WAP site that provides the traveler to and around Asia the information they need to book a hotel while on the go. Asia Travel Mart has for a long while always been my first choice for getting the essential travel information I need for the Asia Pacific region. Rest assured they have membership with the following travel associations:
·PATA (Pacific Asia Travel Association)
·ASTA (American Society of Travel Agents)
·JATA (Japan Association of Travel Agents)
The first thing you will need to do is go to their web site and signup for an account. Don’t worry, it’s free. Go to the new register section and be sure to fill out all the required fields. Once that is done you will be able login into the WAP site. Incidentally, their web site offers an excellent tutorial for using the WAP service on your phone. Very well done for the novice WAP user.
Now for the next step: go to the Asia Travel Mart WAP url and login. Once logged in, you will be sent to the main menu, and from here you’ll be able to search for hotel rates throughout various cities. Looking up any hotel throughout Asia requires only a few clicks, and I especially appreciated the hotel listings. How much is that hotel room in Hong Kong or on Hong Kong Island? Ooh that much! I think I’ll look for a hotel room on the Kowloon side. Asia Travel Mart offers hotels to all major Pacific Rim destinations as well as places I have never heard of or can even pronounce.
The site even offers instant online hotel bookings and confirmation over your WAP phone. Utilizing SSL security your transaction should be more than safe and secure. With this resource bookmarked on my phone, traveling to Asia becomes much easier for my nerves and me.
– Grant (who loves to raise the blood pressure of the merchants on Nathan Road)
The Travel App Today
