WO2010102325A1

WO2010102325A1 - Travel system and method

Info

Publication number: WO2010102325A1
Application number: PCT/AU2010/000252
Authority: WO
Inventors: Hong Min Gu
Original assignee: Virtual Brainet Pty Ltd
Priority date: 2009-03-11
Filing date: 2010-03-08
Publication date: 2010-09-16

Abstract

A method (300) for compiling and booking of a plurality of basic travel components in a travel itinerary, the method comprising: providing a portal site (200) accessible to users via a communications interface (216); receiving (312) an enquiry from a user for a plurality of basic travel components comprising at least two different travel classes; retrieving basic travel component information from database in response to the user's enquiry; processing and transmitting retrieved basic travel component data to the user via the communications interface, the transmitted basic travel component data comprising basic travel components classified in at least two different travel classes; facilitating selection (316) by the user of a plurality of the transmitted basic travel components; and formulating (350) a travel itinerary for the user comprising the selected plurality of basic travel components of more than one travel class for facilitating booking of each of the selected basic travel components in the travel itinerary. Also, a travel booking system (200) and methods for marketing the travel booking system and methods for compiling and booking of a plurality of basic travel components in a travel itinerary.

Description

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TRAVEL SYSTEM AND METHOD

TECHNICAL FIELD

[ 0001 ] The present invention relates to travel itinerary planning methods and system and in particular to methods and systems for user-customisable travel itinerary and tour planning systems over a public network.

[ 0002 ] The invention has been developed primarily for use as methods and systems for enabling and implementing travel itinerary and tour planning by individual users over a network and will be described hereinafter with reference to this application. However, it will be appreciated that the invention is not limited to this particular field of use.

BACKGROUND

[ 0003 ] Any discussion of background art throughout the specification should in no way be considered as an admission that such background art is prior art, nor that such background art is widely known or forms part of the common general knowledge in the field.

[ 0004 ] At present, there are a vast number of travel related websites available to users to obtain information about travel destinations, modes of transport and tours at particular destinations. These current travel-related sites are for the most part purely information sources and provide limited, if any, options for users (for example tourists, business travellers, or travel agents) to compile an itinerary comprising multiple components and obtain an instant price quotation. More generally, users seeking information about a planned trip are typically flooded with excessive information of travel products and packages at scattered websites, with little or no opportunity to integrate different components of the trip in a convenient manner. Users are typically required to spend considerable time and effort in obtaining information about various components of the trip, searching, finding, comparing and putting together a personal itinerary suitable for their needs. Quotations typically need to be obtained from multiple sources, such as individual sites and/or travel agents, to obtain a competitive price for the components of the trip. This generally results in increased operating cost for site owners/providers and agents, fewer orders and reduced profit for providers, and decreased or low quality service and/or higher prices for users. [ 0005 ] Travel agents currently have limited options available to make up personal itineraries for their customers from a limited pool of available travel products, and typically cannot provide a personalised itinerary with instant price quotation to satisfy the needs of their clients/customers and ensure a higher success rate of obtaining a customer's booking on-the-spot (i.e. before the customer leaves the agent and is able to research their own components from information provided by the agent to seek their own pricing information). Presently, agents are required to search basic travel components from numerous different and varied sources having limited product options or instead request the agent's business partners for quotes based on the customer's needs. This results in much time and effort that is wasted in these searches, backward and forward communications between travel agents and customers, and between travel agents and their business partners. Accordingly, existing arrangements result in many failed or unaccepted quotes that increase the operating costs and lower the quality of customer services the agent can provide. [ 0006 ] With the widespread availability of travel websites, many online travel businesses do not have the luxury of personal contact with potential customers. Lack of supportive consultation services and face-to-face experience are two major shortcomings of online travel businesses. Some customers simply do not trust online travel businesses particularly with regard to sending personal information or payment details over the internet, or to have to make less informed decisions or to have less satisfaction in relation to meeting of their travel needs.

[ 0007 ] Accordingly, there is a need for improved methods of arranging multiple basic travel components that are easily accessible to users to form an itinerary where the travel components of the itinerary can be booked by individual users and/or travel agents and systems for implementing such methods in a secure and trusted environment.

[ 0008 ] It is an object of the present invention to substantially overcome or at least ameliorate one or more of the disadvantages of the existing arrangements, or at least to provide a useful alternative to existing methods and systems.

SUMMARY

[ 0009 ] According to a first aspect, there is provided a method for compiling and booking of a plurality of basic travel components in a travel itinerary. The method may comprise the step of providing a portal site accessible to users via a communications interface. The method may further comprise the step of receiving an enquiry from a user for a plurality of basic travel components comprising at least two different travel classes. The method may further comprise the step of retrieving basic travel component information from database in response to the user's enquiry. The method may further comprise the step of processing and transmitting retrieved basic travel component data to the user via the communications interface. The transmitted basic travel component data may comprise basic travel components classified in at least two different travel classes. The method may further comprise the step of facilitating selection by the user of a plurality of the transmitted basic travel components. The method may further comprise the step of formulating a travel itinerary for the user comprising the selected plurality of basic travel components of more than one travel class. The formed itinerary may be used for facilitating booking of each of the selected basic travel components in the travel itinerary. The travel classes may be selected from the group comprising: air travel, land travel, sea travel, accommodation, entry tickets, reservations, meals, tours and the like.

[ 0010 ] The method may further comprise the step of facilitating the acceptance of a single payment from the user for all basic travel components of the itinerary.

[ 0011 ] The method may further comprise the steps of: facilitating the formation by a user of an itinerary of a customised tour; validating the customised tour itinerary; publishing the customised tour itinerary at least on the portal site to a plurality of further users ; and facilitating interested further users to join the customised tour. [ 0012 ] In one exemplary arrangement of the first aspect, there is provided a method for compiling and booking of a plurality of basic travel components in a travel itinerary, the method comprising: providing a portal site accessible to users via a communications interface; receiving an enquiry from a user for a plurality of basic travel components comprising at least two different travel classes; retrieving basic travel component information from database in response to the user's enquiry; processing and transmitting retrieved basic travel component data to the user via the communications interface, the transmitted basic travel component data comprising basic travel components classified in at least two different travel classes; facilitating selection by the user of a plurality of the transmitted basic travel components; and formulating a travel itinerary for the user comprising the selected plurality of basic travel components of more than one travel class for facilitating booking of each of the selected basic travel components in the travel itinerary.

[ 0013 ] In a further exemplary arrangement of the first aspect, there is provided a method for facilitating the formation and booking of a plurality of basic travel components in a travel itinerary, the method comprising: providing a portal site accessible from a client server over a network, the portal site comprising: an application server comprising at least a travel plan application module adapted for querying a database server comprising at least one database to obtain basic travel component information over a plurality of travel classes; accepting enquiries from a user connected via a client terminal to the portal site for a plurality of basic travel components, the basic travel components comprising a plurality of different travel classes; processing the user enquiry in the travel plan application module to querying the database server via a the database access interface to retrieve basic travel component information in response to the users enquiry; displaying the basic travel component information to the user in a self-contained user interface; facilitating the selection of a plurality of basic travel components from the user interface for the formation of a travel itinerary comprising a plurality of basic travel components of more than one travel class; and facilitating the booking of each of the basic travel components in the travel itinerary from the self-contained user interface. The method may further comprise the step of facilitating the acceptance of a single payment from the user for all basic travel components of the itinerary.

[ 0014 ] The application server may further comprise a tour organisation application module accessible by a user from a client terminal via the access interface; the method further comprising, using the tour organisation application module; facilitating the formation of an itinerary of a customised tour using the travel plan application module; validating the customised tour itinerary; publishing the customised tour itinerary at least on the portal site to a plurality of users of the portal site; and facilitating interested users to join the customised tour.

[ 0015 ] According to second aspect, there is provided a travel booking system. The travel booking system may comprise a memory for storing data and program instructions; a communications interface for receiving and transmitting data via a communications network; and a processor coupled to the memory and the communications interface. The processor may be adapted to provide a portal site accessible to users via the communications interface. The processor may also be adapted to receive an enquiry via the communications interface from the user via the communications interface. The user enquiry may be an enquiry for a plurality of basic travel components. The basic travel components may comprise at least two different travel classes. The processor may also be adapted to retrieve basic travel component data from a database in response to the user enquiry. The processor may also be adapted to processing and transmitting retrieved travel component data to the user via the communications interface. The transmitted basic travel component data may comprise basic travel components classified in at least two different travel classes. The processor may also be adapted to facilitate selection by the user of a plurality of the transmitted basic travel components via the communications interface. The processor may also be adapted to formulating a travel itinerary for the user comprising a plurality of basic travel components of more than one travel class. The travel itinerary may be used for facilitating booking of each of the selected basic travel components in the travel itinerary.

[ 0016 ] According to an exemplary arrangement of the second aspect, there is provided a travel booking system comprising: a memory for storing data and program instructions; a communications interface for receiving and transmitting data via a communications network; a processor coupled to the memory and the communications interface, the processor adapted to: providing a portal site accessible to users via the communications interface; receiving an enquiry via the communications interface from the user via the communications interface for a plurality of basic travel components, comprising at least two different travel classes; retrieving basic travel component data from a database in response to the user enquiry; processing and transmitting retrieved travel component data to the user via the communications interface, the transmitted basic travel component data comprising basic travel components classified in at least two different travel classes; facilitating selection by the user of a plurality of the transmitted basic travel components via the communications interface; and formulating a travel itinerary for the user comprising a plurality of basic travel components of more than one travel class for facilitating booking of each of the selected basic travel components in the travel itinerary.

[ 0017 ] The system may further comprise at least one database for storing the basic travel component data. The travel classes may be selected from the group comprising: air travel, land travel, sea travel, entry tickets, reservations, meals, accommodation, tours and the like. The processor may be further adapted to facilitate the acceptance of a single payment from the user for all basic travel components of the itinerary.

[ 0018 ] The processor may be further adapted to: facilitating the formation of an itinerary of a customised tour; validating the customised tour itinerary; publishing the customised tour itinerary at least on the portal site to a plurality of users of the portal site; and facilitating interested users to join the customised tour. [ 0019 ] According to a third aspect, there is provided a computer readable storage medium having a computer program recorded thereon, the program being executable by a computer apparatus. The computer program may comprise computer software program code for receiving an enquiry via the communications interface from the user via the communications interface for a plurality of basic travel components, comprising at least two different travel classes. The computer program may further comprise computer software program code for retrieving basic travel component data from a database in response to the user enquiry. The computer program may further comprise computer program code for processing and transmitting retrieved travel component data to the user via the communications interface, the transmitted basic travel component data comprising basic travel components classified in at least two different travel classes. The computer program may further comprise computer software program code for facilitating selection by the user of a plurality of the transmitted basic travel components via the communications interface. The computer program may further comprise computer software program code for formulating a travel itinerary for the user comprising a plurality of basic travel components of more than one travel class for facilitating booking of each of the selected basic travel components in the travel itinerary.

[ 0020 ] In an exemplary arrangement of the third aspect, there is provided a computer readable storage medium having a computer program recorded thereon, the program being executable by a computer apparatus, the computer program comprising: computer software program code for receiving an enquiry via the communications interface from the user via the communications interface for a plurality of basic travel components, comprising at least two different travel classes; computer software program code for retrieving basic travel component data from a database in response to the user enquiry; processing and transmitting retrieved travel component data to the user via the communications interface, the transmitted basic travel component data comprising basic travel components classified in at least two different travel classes; computer software program code for facilitating selection by the user of a plurality of the transmitted basic travel components via the communications interface; and computer software program code for formulating a travel itinerary for the user comprising a plurality of basic travel components of more than one travel class for facilitating booking of each of the selected basic travel components in the travel itinerary.

[ 0021 ] According to a fourth aspect, there is provided computer program comprising computer software program code to make a computer execute a procedure. The procedure executed by the computer comprising the computer program may comprise the step of providing a portal site accessible to users via a communications interface. The procedure executed by the computer may further comprise the step of receiving an enquiry via the communications interface from the user via the communications interface for a plurality of basic travel components, comprising at least two different travel classes. The procedure executed by the computer may further comprise the step of retrieving basic travel component data from a database in response to the user enquiry. The procedure executed by the computer may further comprise the step of processing and transmitting retrieved travel component data to the user via the communications interface, the transmitted basic travel component data comprising basic travel components classified in at least two different travel classes. The procedure executed by the computer may further comprise the step of facilitating selection by the user of a plurality of the transmitted basic travel components via the communications interface. The procedure executed by the computer may further comprise the step of formulating a travel itinerary for the user comprising a plurality of basic travel components of more than one travel class for facilitating booking of each of the selected basic travel components in the travel itinerary.

[ 0022 ] In an exemplary arrangement of the fourth aspect, there is provided a computer program comprising computer software program code to make a computer execute a procedure to execute the steps of: providing a portal site accessible to users via a communications interface; receiving an enquiry via the communications interface from the user via the communications interface for a plurality of basic travel components, comprising at least two different travel classes; retrieving basic travel component data from a database in response to the user enquiry; processing and transmitting retrieved travel component data to the user via the communications interface, the transmitted basic travel component data comprising basic travel components classified in at least two different travel classes; facilitating selection by the user of a plurality of the transmitted basic travel components via the communications interface; and formulating a travel itinerary for the user comprising a plurality of basic travel components of more than one travel class for facilitating booking of each of the selected basic travel components in the travel itinerary.

[ 0023 ] According to a fifth aspect, there is provided a marketing method for promotion of first party services, the method comprising the step of enabling a second party to promote the services of the first party to a third party, the second party being a member of the first party and wherein the second party provides means for the third party to become a member of the first party. The method may further comprise the step of designating the second party as a referrer associated with the third party. The method may further comprise the step of providing services of the first party to be purchased by the third party for payment to the first party. The method may further comprise the step of, on the basis of the services purchased from the first party by the third party, awarding the second party a referral reward equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by the third party.

[ 0024 ] In an exemplary arrangement of the fifth aspect, there is provided a marketing method for promotion of first party services, the method comprising the steps of: enabling a second party to promote the services of the first party to a third party, the second party being a member of the first party and wherein the second party provides means for the third party to become a member of the first party; designating the second party as a referrer associated with the third party; providing services of the first party to be purchased by the third party for payment to the first party; and, on the basis of the services purchased from the first party by the third party, awarding the second party a referral reward equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by the third party.

[ 0025 ] The second party may promote the services of the first party to a plurality of third parties, and the second party may be awarded a reward equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by each of the plurality of third parties. [ 0026 ] The means for the third party to become a member of the first party may be an association with a portal site of the first party, the portal site being configured to register members of the first party.

[ 0027 ] The second party may be a member of the first party with a first membership class, the third party may be a member of the first party with a second membership class, wherein the first and second membership classes having differing access provisions to services offered by the first party. In this arrangement, the referral reward awarded to the second party may be a monetary payment equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by each referee associated with the second party. In other arrangements, the second party and the third party may be of the second membership class, and wherein the referral reward awarded to the second party comprises or is limited to products and/or services provided by the first party.

[ 0028 ] The method may further comprise the steps of: enabling the third party to promote the services of the first party to a further third party, the third party being a member of the first party and wherein the third party provides means for the further third party to become a member of the first party; designating the third party as a referrer associated with the further third party; providing products and services of the first party to be purchased by the further third party for payment to the first party; and on the basis of the products and services purchased from the first party by the further third party, paying the third party a commission equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by the further third party.

[ 0029 ] The third party may promote the services of the first party to a plurality of further third parties, and the third party may be awarded a referral reward equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by each of the plurality of further third parties. [ 0030 ] The first party may offer incentives to visitors (third parties) of the portal site to become members thereof. , The incentive may be a prize offered by the first party. The prize may include products and/or services offered by the first party to be redeemed by a third party who validly wins the prize. The third party may be required to be a member of the first party to validly win or redeem the prize. The third party may be required to have a predetermined membership class to validly win or redeem the prize. The offer of the prize by the first party may provide a incentive for third and or further third parties to become a member of the first party. The offer of the prize by the first party may provide a incentive for second, third and/or further third parties to further promote the services of the first party.

[ 0031 ] According to a sixth aspect, there is provided a method for making donations to a beneficiary, the method comprising the steps of, for a first party providing products and/or services to a second party, wherein the second party is a member of the first party and the second party is awarded rewards by the first party, the reward value being equivalent to a predefined percentage of the second party's expenditure on the first party products and/or services, enabling the second party to donate at least a portion of the rewards to the beneficiary.

[ 0032 ] The second party may donate all the rewards awarded by the first party to the beneficiary. The second party may donate a plurality of portions of the rewards awarded thereto by the first party to a corresponding plurality of beneficiaries.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[ 0033 ] Arrangements of the methods and systems will now be described, by way of an example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings wherein: [ 0034 ] Figures IA and IB form a schematic block diagram of a general purpose computer system upon which the arrangements described can be practised;

[ 0035 ] Figure 2 shows a logical level schematic representation of a overall system infrastructure according to an arrangement of the present travel system;

[ 0036 ] Figures 3A, 3B and 3C show a flowchart of a method adapted for creating and booking an individualised tour itinerary according to an arrangement of the travel planning methods disclosed herein; [ 0037 ] Figures 4A and 4B depict a flowchart of a method for creating and publishing a customised tour itinerary according to an arrangement of the travel planning methods disclosed herein;

[ 0038 ] Figures 4C and 4D depict a flowchart of a method for joining a customised tour itinerary;

[ 0039 ] Figure 5 depicts a flowchart of a method for accepting a new registered user to a portal site when obtained by referral;

[ 0040 ] Figure 6 depicts a flowchart of a method for offering and winning random prizes in a network environment; [ 0041 ] Figure 7 depict a flowchart of a method for facilitating a donation to a selected beneficiary member;

[ 0042 ] Figures 8A to 8C depict schematic logical level operations diagrams for different membership classes envisaged as part of a marketing/referral and donor system described herein; and [ 0043 ] Figure 9 depicts schematic logical level operational diagrams for different membership classes in an exemplary arrangement of the marketing/referral system described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION [ 0044 ] Although any methods and materials similar or equivalent to those described herein can be used in the practice or testing of the present invention, preferred methods and materials are described. It will be appreciated that the methods, apparatus and systems described herein may be implemented in a variety of ways and for a variety of purposes. The description here is by way of example only. [ 0045 ] Referring to the drawings, the methods and systems disclosed herein provide travel itinerary planning methods and systems, particularly for user-implementable travel itinerary and tour planning systems over a public network such as the internet. The core processes described herein are centred on the concept of a do-it-yourself (DIY) core process, which enables users to select their preferred basic travel components. Examples of such basic travel components include, for example, airfares, ground transport (bus, train, car hire etc), local tours (which may also include packaged local tours, for example, 2-3 day tours, etc), entry tickets (for example to local attractions or combined tickets providing entry to multiple attractions), meals, reservations (e.g. to local restaurants), airport transfer services, hotels. An extensive range of available basic travel products are presented to the user in a single travel portal location (portal site) and self-contained user interface to facilitate formation of a travel itinerary comprising all required components.

[ 0046 ] The term basic travel component as used herein refers to a component of a travel itinerary that can not be broken down into further component parts. For example, an entry ticket to a local attraction may also include entry to additional visitor experiences (e.g. informational movies, etc). Where these additional visitor experiences can not be purchased separately, the entry ticket to the attraction is termed a "basic travel component" - it can not be broken down into further component parts. In contrast, a "Tourist Pass" may for example include entry tickets to a more than one local attraction. In this case, entry tickets to each of the included local attractions can be purchased separately by a traveller, therefore the Tourist Pass is not a basic travel component. If desired, a tourist can purchase selected components included in the Tourist Pass separately in accordance with their individual needs/requirements, thus potentially saving on the cost/inconvenience/etc of an unwanted component of the Tourist Pass. An example of such a Tourist Pass, which is not a basic travel component as defined herein, may be the "See Sydney Card" available from Smartvisit™ Solutions Pty. Ltd, Crows Nest, NSW, 2065, AUSTRALIA. The See Sydney Card includes "free entry to over 40 top attractions across Sydney", where each of the available attractions may be purchased separately by a tourist. Thus, each of the included attractions would be classed as a basic travel component under the present definition. It is to be appreciated, however, that the present methods and systems are not to be limited to provisions of components that are only basic components and may also provide access to packaged components which are comprised of more than one basic component. For example the methods and systems may offer each of the attractions available in the above See Sydney Card example as individual items, and may also offer the packaged See Sydney Card itself for those tourists/travellers who would prefer the combined package ticket.

[ 0047 ] The presentation of all travel planning options within a single travel portal location, particularly within a self-contained user interface provided at a single portal site, enables the user to compile all basic travel components across varied travel classes for example travel (air, sea, land) accommodation, tours, local cruises, entry tickets to local attractions (theme parks, cinemas, zoos, museums, galleries etc), meals (e.g. local restaurant bookings/reservations), etc within a single user-selected travel itinerary completed with complete pricing information and options for each component and, ultimately, the entire trip which offers unparalleled flexibility to the individual user. [ 0048 ] By accessing the travel portal site, the user can complete all the work in searching, comparison, selection and booking in simple and streamlined processes at the travel portal. This travel portal location is preferably embodied as a single website accessible to individual users over a public network such as the internet. As an additional service, the travel portal site operator may offer the service of professional travel experts, for example, consultants employed by or associated with the travel portal site operator. Such experts can offer personalised consulting services to the user for example for checking or validation of the user's selected basic travel components. The experts may also provide advice to the user of potential conflicting components or requirements (e.g. timing between components and preference, etc) that may not have been considered or appreciated by the user. This advice may arise from checks by the experts of the user- created itinerary for errors or incompatible components that the user may have selected, i.e. if the user has not allowed sufficient time between travel components e.g. to clear customs or surface travel between each component. The portal travel expert services may also include suggestion of additional services or travel options (e.g. local tours) that may be of interest to the user. This personalised expert service may be offered over the network (e.g. email, online chat), via a personal telephone call to the user, or even via a physical presence of the portal operator that the user may visit for a face-to-face experience.

[ 0049 ] Use of the travel portal by individual users to create their own individual, personalised itineraries will save a significant amount of time and money for the user themselves and the travel portal operator (or alternatively a travel agent using the travel portal on behalf of the user). Improved supportive expert consultant services can be provided by the travel agent and/or portal operator to ensure value for money and high level of customer service and satisfaction for the individual traveller, and well informed decisions can be made by the user with confidence.

[ 0050 ] Arrangements of the operation travel portal site and the systems upon which the portal may be realised as depicted in Figures 2 to 7 may be implemented on general purpose and/or dedicated or server computer systems. Figures IA and IB collectively form a schematic block diagram of a general purpose computer system 100, upon which the various arrangements described herein may be practiced.

[ 0051 ] As seen in Figure IA, the computer system 100 is formed by a computer module 101, input devices such as a keyboard 102, a mouse pointer device 103, a scanner 126, a camera 127, and a microphone 180, and output devices including a printer 115, a display device 114 and loudspeakers 117. An external Modulator-Demodulator (Modem) transceiver device 116 may be used by the computer module 101 for communicating to and from a communications network 120 via a connection 121. The network 120 may be a wide-area network (WAN), such as the Internet or a private WAN. Where the connection 121 is a telephone line, the modem 116 may be a traditional "dial-up" modem. Alternatively, where the connection 121 is a high capacity (eg: cable) connection, the modem 116 may be a broadband modem. A wireless modem may also be used for wireless connection to the network 120.

[ 0052 ] The computer module 101 typically includes at least one processor unit 105, and a memory unit 106 for example formed from semiconductor random access memory (RAM) and semiconductor read only memory (ROM). The module 101 also includes an number of input/output (I/O) interfaces including an audio-video interface 107 that couples to the video display 114, loudspeakers 117 and microphone 180, an I/O interface 113 for the keyboard 102, mouse 103, scanner 126, camera 127 and optionally a joystick (not illustrated), and an interface 108 for the external modem 116 and printer 115. In some implementations, the modem 116 may be incorporated within the computer module 101, for example within the interface 108. The computer module 101 also has a local network interface 111 which, via a connection 123, permits coupling of the computer system 100 to a local computer network 122, known as a Local Area Network (LAN). As also illustrated, the local network 122 may also couple to the wide network 120 via a connection 124, which would typically include a so-called "firewall" device or device of similar functionality. The interface 111 may be formed by an Ethernet™ circuit card, a Bluetooth™ wireless arrangement or an IEEE 802.11 wireless arrangement.

[ 0053 ] The interfaces 108 and 113 may afford either or both of serial and parallel connectivity, the former typically being implemented according to the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standards and having corresponding USB connectors (not illustrated). Storage devices 109 are provided and typically include a hard disk drive (HDD) 110. Other storage devices such as a floppy disk drive and a magnetic tape drive (not illustrated) may also be used. An optical disk drive 112 is typically provided to act as a non- volatile source of data. Portable memory devices, such optical disks (eg: CD-ROM, DVD), USB-RAM, and floppy disks for example may then be used as appropriate sources of data to the system 100.

[ 0054 ] The components 105 to 113 of the computer module 101 typically communicate via an interconnected bus 104 and in a manner which results in a conventional mode of operation of the computer system 100 known to those in the relevant art. Examples of computers on which the described arrangements can be practised include IBM-PC's and compatibles, Sun Sparcstations, Apple Mac™ or alike computer systems evolved therefrom.

[ 0055 ] The method of providing an interface for a user to plan and implement an itinerary over a network may be implemented using the computer system 100 wherein the processes of Figures 2 to 7, to be described, may be implemented as one or more software application programs 133 executable within the computer system 100. In particular, the steps of the methods disclosed herein are effected by instructions 131 in the software 133 that are carried out within the computer system 100. The software instructions 131 may be formed as one or more code modules, each for performing one or more particular tasks. The software may also be divided into two separate parts, in which a first part and the corresponding code modules performs the methods disclosed herein and a second part and the corresponding code modules manage a user interface between the first part and the user.

[ 0056 ] The software 133 is generally loaded into the computer system 100 from a computer readable medium, and is then typically stored in the HDD 110, as illustrated in Figure IA, or the memory 106, after which the software 133 can be executed by the computer system 100. In some instances, the application programs 133 may be supplied to the user encoded on one or more CD-ROM 125 and read via the corresponding drive 112 prior to storage in the memory 110 or 106. Alternatively the software 133 may be read by the computer system 100 from the networks 120 or 122 or loaded into the computer system 100 from other computer readable media. Computer readable storage media refers to any storage medium that participates in providing instructions and/or data to the computer system 100 for execution and/or processing. Examples of such storage media include floppy disks, magnetic tape, CD-ROM, a hard disk drive, a ROM or integrated circuit, USB memory, a magneto-optical disk, or a computer readable card such as a PCMCIA card and the like, whether or not such devices are internal or external of the computer module 101. Examples of computer readable transmission media that may also participate in the provision of software, application programs, instructions and/or data to the computer module 101 include radio or infra-red transmission channels as well as a network connection to another computer or networked device, and the Internet or Intranets including e-mail transmissions and information recorded on Websites and the like.

[ 0057 ] The second part of the application programs 133 and the corresponding code modules mentioned above may be executed to implement one or more graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to be rendered or otherwise represented upon the display 114. Through manipulation of typically the keyboard 102 and the mouse 103, a user of the computer system 100 and the application may manipulate the interface in a functionally adaptable manner to provide controlling commands and/or input to the applications associated with the GUI(s). Other forms of functionally adaptable user interfaces may also be implemented, such as an audio interface utilizing speech prompts output via the loudspeakers 117 and user voice commands input via the microphone 180.

[ 0058 ] Figure IB is a detailed schematic block diagram of the processor 105 and a "memory" 134. The memory 134 represents a logical aggregation of all the memory devices (including the HDD 110 and semiconductor memory 106) that can be accessed by the computer module 101 in Figure IA. [ 0059 ] When the computer module 101 is initially powered up, a power-on self-test (POST) program 150 executes. The POST program 150 is typically stored in a ROM 149 of the semiconductor memory 106. A program permanently stored in a hardware device such as the ROM 149 is sometimes referred to as firmware. The POST program 150 examines hardware within the computer module 101 to ensure proper functioning, and typically checks the processor 105, the memory (109, 106), and a basic input-output systems software (BIOS) module 151, also typically stored in the ROM 149, for correct operation. Once the POST program 150 has run successfully, the BIOS 151 activates the hard disk drive 110. Activation of the hard disk drive 110 causes a bootstrap loader program 152 that is resident on the hard disk drive 110 to execute via the processor 105. This loads an operating system 153 into the RAM memory 106 upon which the operating system 153 commences operation. The operating system 153 is a system level application, executable by the processor 105, to fulfil various high level functions, including processor management, memory management, device management, storage management, software application interface, and generic user interface. [ 0060 ] The operating system 153 manages the memory (109, 106) in order to ensure that each process or application running on the computer module 101 has sufficient memory in which to execute without colliding with memory allocated to another process. Furthermore, the different types of memory available in the system 100 must be used properly so that each process can run effectively. Accordingly, the aggregated memory 134 is not intended to illustrate how particular segments of memory are allocated (unless otherwise stated), but rather to provide a general view of the memory accessible by the computer system 100 and how such is used.

[ 0061 ] The processor 105 includes a number of functional modules including a control unit 139, an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) 140, and a local or internal memory 148, sometimes called a cache memory. The cache memory 148 typically includes a number of storage registers 144 - 146 in a register section. One or more internal buses 141 functionally interconnect these functional modules. The processor 105 typically also has one or more interfaces 142 for communicating with external devices via the system bus 104, using a connection 118. [ 0062 ] The application program 133 includes a sequence of instructions 131 that may include conditional branch and loop instructions. The program 133 may also include data 132 which is used in execution of the program 133. The instructions 131 and the data 132 are stored in memory locations 128-130 and 135-137 respectively. Depending upon the relative size of the instructions 131 and the memory locations 128-130, a particular instruction may be stored in a single memory location as depicted by the instruction shown in the memory location 130. Alternately, an instruction may be segmented into a number of parts each of which is stored in a separate memory location, as depicted by the instruction segments shown in the memory locations 128-129.

[ 0063 ] In general, the processor 105 is given a set of instructions which are executed therein. The processor 105 then waits for a subsequent input, to which it reacts to by executing another set of instructions. Each input may be provided from one or more of a number of sources, including data generated by one or more of the input devices 102, 103, data received from an external source across one of the networks 120, 122, data retrieved from one of the storage devices 106, 109 or data retrieved from a storage medium 125 inserted into the corresponding reader 112. The execution of a set of the instructions may in some cases result in output of data. Execution may also involve storing data or variables to the memory 134.

[ 0064 ] The disclosed system arrangements use input variables 154, that are stored in the memory 134 in corresponding memory locations 155-158. The disclosed arrangements produce output variables 161, that are stored in the memory 134 in corresponding memory locations 162-165. Intermediate variables may be stored in memory locations 159, 160, 166 and 167.

[ 0065 ] The register section 144-146, the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) 140, and the control unit 139 of the processor 105 work together to perform sequences of micro- operations needed to perform "fetch, decode, and execute" cycles for every instruction in the instruction set making up the program 133. Each fetch, decode, and execute cycle comprises: (a) a fetch operation, which fetches or reads an instruction 131 from a memory location 128; (b) a decode operation in which the control unit 139 determines which instruction has been fetched; and (c) an execute operation in which the control unit 139 and/or the ALU 140 execute the instruction. [ 0066 ] Thereafter, a further fetch, decode, and execute cycle for the next instruction may be executed. Similarly, a store cycle may be performed by which the control unit 139 stores or writes a value to a memory location 132.

[ 0067 ] Each step or sub-process in the processes of Figures 2 to 7 is associated with one or more segments of the program 133, and is performed by the register section 144-147, the ALU 140, and the control unit 139 in the processor 105 working together to perform the fetch, decode, and execute cycles for every instruction in the instruction set for the noted segments of the program 133.

[ 0068 ] Exemplary arrangements of a computer enabled method of creating travel itineraries and booking travel products over a network will now be described. However, it should be noted that the method could also be applied not only to the booking of other forms of travel including, but not limited to, air tickets, cruises and cars, but also may be applied to other applications in addition to travel-related services as would be appreciated by the skilled addressee. [ 0069 ] In an arrangement of the systems and methods disclosed herein, there may be provided a method for compiling and booking of a plurality of basic travel components in a travel itinerary. Referring to Figures 2 and 3 A, 3 B and 3 C, the method 300 may comprise the step of providing a portal site 200 accessible to users via a communications interface 216, which may be provided over a network 204. The method 300 may further comprise the step of receiving 312 an enquiry from a user for a plurality of basic travel components comprising at least two different travel classes. The method may further comprise the step of retrieving basic travel component information from database 208 in response to the user's enquiry. The method may further comprise the step of processing and transmitting 314 retrieved basic travel component data to the user via the communications interface. The transmitted basic travel component data may comprise basic travel components classified in at least two different travel classes. The method may further comprise the step of facilitating selection 316 by the user of a plurality of the transmitted basic travel components. The method may further comprise the step of formulating a travel itinerary 350 for the user comprising the selected plurality of basic travel components of more than one travel class. The formed itinerary may be used for facilitating booking of each of the selected basic travel components in the travel itinerary. The travel classes may be selected from the group comprising: air travel, land travel, sea travel, accommodation, entry tickets, reservations, meals, tours and the like.

[ 0070 ] The method may further comprise the step of facilitating the acceptance of a single payment from the user for all basic travel components of the itinerary. [ 0071 ] The method may further comprise the steps of: facilitating the formation by a user of an itinerary of a customised tour; validating the customised tour itinerary; publishing the customised tour itinerary at least on the portal site to a plurality of further users; and facilitating interested further users to join the customised tour. [ 0072 ] In arrangement of the systems disclosed herein, there may be provided a travel booking system configured to enable a member user of a portal site to search and plan a travel itinerary comprising a plurality of individualised basic travel components of different travel classes over at least one travel segment from a remote client terminal. The basic travel components refer to unique items which comprise the tour itinerary, for example a travel leg, a single hotel booking, a particular tour, and each basic travel component often is normally arranged through unique providers. For example, a user may participate in two organised tours whilst staying in a particular location, where each of the two tours would be classed as a separate basic travel component. In another example of basic travel components, the users may fly to a destination using two independent airlines (eg. an domestic or international flight, followed by a local flight operator) - in this case the two separate air travel legs are considered to be two separate basic travel components. The travel classes may broadly comprise such classes as air travel, land travel, sea travel, accommodation, local cruises (e.g. river/harbour cruises as opposed to travel between ports by boat), entry tickets (e.g. to local attractions such as theme parks, cinemas, zoos, museums, galleries, and the like), meals (e.g. local restaurant bookings/reservations), and tours, however it will be appreciated that may other travel classes may be defined as required. For instance in the previous example, both tours would be classified in the same class (tours), and both air travel legs would also be classified in the same class (air travel).

[ 0073 ] According to further arrangement there is provided a travel booking system. The travel booking system may comprise a memory 106 for storing data and program instructions; a communications interface (108, 116) for receiving and transmitting data via a communications network (120, 122); and a processor 105 coupled to the memory 106 and the communications interface 108. The processor 105 may be adapted to provide a portal site accessible to users via the communications interface (108, 116). The processor 105 may also be adapted to receive an enquiry via the communications interface (108, 116) from the user. The user enquiry may be an enquiry for a plurality of basic travel components. The basic travel components may comprise at least two different travel classes. The processor 105 may also be adapted to retrieve basic travel component data from a database 208 in response to the user enquiry, where the database may be stored on memory 106. The processor 105 may also be adapted to processing and transmitting retrieved travel component data to the user via the communications interface. The transmitted basic travel component data may comprise basic travel components classified in at least two different travel classes. The processor may also be adapted to facilitate selection by the user of a plurality of the transmitted basic travel components via the communications interface. The processor may also be adapted to formulating a travel itinerary for the user comprising a plurality of basic travel components of more than one travel class. The travel itinerary may be used for facilitating booking of each of the selected basic travel components in the travel itinerary.

[ 0074 ] Referring to Figure 2, the travel booking system 200 may comprise a remote terminal interface 216 configured to enable data communication with one or more remote client terminals; a database interface 226 configured to enable data communication with one or more databases; and an application server configured to execute instructions contained in the travel plan application module 218 thereon. The travel plan application module 218 may be configured (i.e. comprising instructions in the form of computer executable code) to: receive a hotel and/or tour products search request from a client terminal 210; specify one or more trip criteria corresponding to a trip to be booked by a member user; query one or more hotel and/or tour products databases 228 in accordance with at least one of said hotel and/or tour products to retrieve qualifying hotels and/or tour products data relating to one or more qualifying hotels and/or tour products that meet said at least one hotel and/or tour products criteria; communicate said qualifying hotel and/or tour products data to the client terminal 210; receive preferred hotel and/or tour products, and number of travellers data from the client terminal 210, representing at least one hotel and/or tour products selected from the qualifying hotel and/or tour products by the terminal's user; receive user defined date data for each of the tour products selected from the terminal's user; receive contact person details and all travellers' information data from the terminal's user; communicate all detailed data of selected hotels and/or tour products, sub total price and bonus points of each hotel and/or product, and total price, total bonus point and total redeemable point to the client terminal 210; communicate order confirmation data to the client terminal 210; and record all selected hotels and/or tour products, contact person and travellers data to a user-associated order database. As will be appreciated, the above method may be extended to include additional basic travel components into the user's itinerary from further basic travel components and/or travel classes as described herein.

[ 0075 ] In another arrangement, there is provided a computer program for controlling the operation of a computer processor to: process a hotel and/or tour products request to obtain one or more hotels and/or tour products criteria corresponding to a trip to be booked by a member user; interrogate hotels and/or tour products databases in accordance with at least one of said hotels and/or tour products criteria to identify one or more qualifying hotels and/or tour products; generate a qualifying hotels and/or tour products interface to enable a member user to select from the qualifying hotels and/or tour products a plurality of preferred hotels and/or tour products; generate a detailed hotel information page when it is selected to enable a member user to read through the in-depth information of each interested hotel; replace this current hotel information page with a recommended similar hotel information page if such a recommended similar hotel is selected; generate a detailed tour product information page when it is selected to enable a member user to read through the in-depth information of each interested tour product; generate a new information page for a recommended similar tour product if such a recommended similar tour product is selected; enable the member user to specify a number of travellers to make the trip and for each product, and a member user defined dates for the hotels and/ tour products; enable the member user to confirm the booking after checking and editing all selected hotels and/or tour products information presented on one page altogether; record all selected hotels and/or tour products, contact person and travellers data to the order databases; generate an order confirmation information notification page with automated Order number and payment dates and amounts; generate an confirmation notification to the user (eg email) with automated order number and payment dates and amounts to the member user's registered email account. Also provided is a computer readable medium storing computer code comprising a computer program as described above.

[ 0076 ] The system 200 of Figure 2 may be configured to implement a computerised method for creating travel itineraries and booking travel products according to an exemplary arrangement of a travel booking system configured to enable a member user of a portal site to search and plan a travel itinerary comprising a plurality of individualised basic travel components of different travel classes from a remote client terminal. The travel classes may broadly comprise such classes as air travel, land travel, sea travel, accommodation, and tours, however it will be appreciated that may other travel classes may be defined as required. The system comprises an application server 206 which may be suited or adapted for providing application services over a network such as wide-area network (120 of Figure 1), local area network (122 of Figure 1) or the internet 204. Server 206 may be configured to run a travel plan application module 218 configured for the provision of tools and interface(s) to a user of the system on a client terminal (eg. 210, 212 or 214). Travel plan application module 218 may be adapted to allow the user on the client terminal to prepare individualised/customised services, in the present context for the creation of an individual travel itinerary comprising many related components such as air travel (eg. flights), sea travel (boat, cruise liner), accommodation (eg. hotels, hostels, camp sites, home stays, farm stays, etc), car hire, tours (land, sea, sightseeing, educational, historical, themed e.g. wine, among many others tour types as would be appreciated) etc. In the present examples, travel plan application module 218 may be adapted to provide the DIY core processes described above (travel plan application module 218). The server 206 may as comprise a plurality of other, which may be inter-related, application modules, for example modules 220, 222, 224 etc. In the present context, such application modules may be adapted for providing services to the user, say on client terminal 210, such as creation of self-organised group tours (i.e. SOG tour application module 220), member services to registered members/users of the portal site (e.g. bonuses, rewards, gifts order management module (i.e. member services application module 222), or additional application modules for other related services (i.e. other application module 224).

[ 0077 ] The client terminals 210, 212 and 214 are capable of connecting to application server 206 via a computer network, for example WLAN, wide-area network (120 of Figure 1), local area network (122 of Figure 1) the internet 204 or the like, and have data communication with server 206 through a suitable system interface 216. The system interface 216 may be a web page presented to the client terminal on demand over the network (i.e. the internet).

[ 0078 ] Application server 206 is also in data communication with a database server 208 through a database access/query interface 226. Each application module of server 206 may be associated with a dedicated database or databases on database server 208, although each application module may request information from and retrieve such requested information form each of the databases on the database server 208 as needs require. The database may comprise basic travel component data stored therein. The basic travel component data stored in the database may be manually entered therein or may be automatically retrieved from one or more independent and/or external databases and stored on database server 208. Alternatively, databases may be externally located and operated databases accessibly by the application server 206 via interface 226.

[ 0079 ] DIY travel plan application module 218 enables users accessing the travel portal site 200 through a client terminal (any one of 210, 212 or 214) to input their basic info or needs of their travel, such as visiting cities, dates, selection of categorised travel products (flights, visa service, hotels, airport transfers, scenery tickets, local in-depth tours and chartered coaches), and hence communicate with the relevant databases stored on database server 208 to retrieve and present selected categorised products, to record down any selection of such products and contact person and tourists' information, and finally to form a DIY tour itinerary in a streamlined manner with minimal additional effort by the user required in relation to searching other sources for information or travel options or sourcing additional quotes on pricing information from numerous providers.

[ 0080 ] Additional application modules may be adapted to suit the requirements of the portal site as would be appreciated by the skilled addressee. In the present example in terms of the provision of travel related services to users of a travel portal site, the plurality of additional application modules may be adapted to provide services/applications/functions as follows, although it will be appreciated that such services/applications/functions are described as examples only and are not restrictive, such that such application modules may be modified or replaced with suitable alternatives as required.

[ 0081 ] For example, tour organisation application module 220 may be adapted to enable users accessing the portal site 200 from a client terminal (210, 212 or 214) over network 204 to create their own personalised (self-organised) group (SOG) tours by compiling a selection of basic travel components using the travel plan application module 218 or by alternatively selecting a representative group tour example from the tour organisation application module 220 which then may be customised by the user to suit their individual requirements. The SOG tour created by the user may then be passed to a portal site administrative process for assessment, validation and pricing, and if approved by the administrative process, and any required deposit is paid, the SOG tour may then be published/advertised to other member users portal site user interface 216 as an available tour. For instance, the SOG tour may be presented to a user compiling a travel itinerary (i.e. using the travel plan application module 218) in the general vicinity of the location of the SOG tour, and may be presented as an optional tour travel component that the user may join whilst staying in that location. The SOG application module 220 is additionally adapted to accept orders from other member users of the portal site for participation by such other users to form a successful SOG tour. The SOG tour creation and publication process is described in greater detail below.

[ 0082 ] The member services application module 222 may be adapted to provide member users with tools/facilities to manage their own member profiles, check, edit and pay for products/services arranged through the portal site 200 and other related services as required.

[ 0083 ] In particular exemplary arrangements of the travel portal site 200, the database server 208 may comprise one or more database components (228, 230, 232, 234) which may be adapted or configured as, for example, categorised travel products databases 228, self organised group tour databases 230, member services (bonuses, rewards, gifts, order management) databases 232, and other system information databases 234. Databases server 208 accepts queries from application modules of the application server 206 in response to user enquiries/requests via the database access interface 226 and provides all required data to be listed in any of the application modules (218, 220, 222 and 224) to be displayed to the user via the self-contained user interface 216. Database server 208 also stores any relevant data acquired from the application modules in server 206 in a suitable database component in accordance with requirements.

[ 0084 ] In the present example of travel portal site 200, categorised travel products databases 228 may store data in various sub databases which may in turn comprise data on any one or more of flights, hotels, package tours, airport shuttle buses, airport chartered coach buses, chartered coach buses, scenery tickets, local in-depth tours (for example including less than 1 day local tours, 1, 2 or 3 days local tours and more than 3 days local tours), specially priced flights, specially priced hotels, specially priced tours, specially priced local tours for hotel bookings, popular packages, small group in-depth tours, etc. as related to travel requirements. Self organised group tour database 230 may comprise for example various sub databases for storing data on SOG Tours and SOG Tour Orders created and made by member users of the portal site. Member services database 232 may for example comprise various sub databases such as information on individual members, partner members, affiliate members, member orders, SOG orders, bonus points, redeemed points, gifts, etc. in accordance with requirements. Other system information databases 234 include various sub databases as required.

[ 0085 ] Figures 3A to 3C describe in detail an exemplary arrangement of the core process for the travel portal site 200 which enables member users to create their own personalised travel itineraries comprising a variety of basic travel components of different travel classes. The travel classes may broadly comprise such classes as air travel, land travel, sea travel, accommodation, local cruises, entry tickets to local attractions (theme parks, cinemas, zoos, museums, galleries etc), meals (e.g. local restaurant bookings/reservations) and tours, however it will be appreciated that may other travel classes may be defined as required. In an exemplary arrangement, this do-it-yourself (DIY) process provides a method 300 for searching and planning a trip wherein the trip comprises a plurality of basic travel components of different travel classes. The travel classes may broadly comprise such classes as air travel, land travel, sea travel, accommodation, entry tickets, meals, reservations and tours, however it will be appreciated that may other travel classes may be defined as required. Method 300 may be implemented by application module travel plan application module 218 of application server 206. Travel plan application module 218 may be stored in memory 106 of application server 206 and the server 206 may comprise a processor 105 adapted to cause travel plan application module 218 to implement the steps of method 300. Method 300 may initially comprise a log-on process (steps 302, 304, 306 of Figure 3A) whereby a user accesses the application server 206 of portal site 200 over network 204 and validates their individual user account with the application server. It will be appreciated that this initial log on process is required for access to the application modules of the portal site 200, however, once a user is "logged-in" the process does not necessarily need to be repeated prior to each access request to any of the application modules of server 206.

[ 0086 ] Method 300 may comprise presenting 308 the user with a DIY travel selection portal site comprising a user interface for accepting information about the user's planned travel arrangements. The method then may comprise receiving, from a member user's terminal (eg 210), detailed information 310 corresponding to a user's travel plans including details of places (cities/locations) and dates of the user's planned travel, the number of travellers, hotels and various basic travel component products to be booked by the user. The user may then be provided with the option 312 of searching for a first basic travel component, for example air travel and options required for the trip. If selected, the user is presented 314 with a selection of air component options and the method comprises the step 316 of accepting and booking the users selected air travel components. The booking of the component may comprise a tentative booking to be confirmed once the itinerary has been completed and validated by the user prior to payment for the selected components. The users may then be presented 318 with the details of the booked components for validation, and then once confirmed the method comprises the step of accepting 320 information from the user on the traveller information as required by the provider of the air component. This information is then stored in a suitable database against the users account. [ 0087 ] The method 300 then comprises querying 324 the user for requirements of a next basic travel component. The next basic travel component may be in the same travel class as the first basic travel component, or may be in a different travel class, for example hotel bookings. If hotel components are required, the method comprises presenting 326 to the user via DIY portal information on available hotels in each city. This step may comprise querying a hotel database which may be stored in a suitable database component (eg. 228) on the database server 208, in accordance with at least one of the user's search criteria (e.g. rating information, location of hotel etc) to identify one or more qualifying hotels and generating a qualifying hotels display enabling a member user to select from the qualifying hotels a plurality of preferred hotels. The user is then provided the opportunity of obtaining information 328 about hotels of interest and selecting 330 desired hotel room(s) as required. The user may optionally be provided with a further step 332 of configuring hotel options (including for example detailed selection of room/rooms, dates to stay, number of rooms, number of travellers (adult, child and infants), number of extra beds, number of adult and child breakfasts, bed configurations, etc) with the hotel, before being presented 324 with detailed information of the hotel rooms booked for validation by the user. The booking of the component may at this stage comprise a tentative booking to be confirmed once the itinerary has been completed and validated by the user prior to payment for the selected components. Again, once validated, the method 300 comprises accepting from the user traveller information as required by the hotel by generating 336 a traveller's information page for the user to input / check up detailed information for the contact person, and names and ages of all travellers.

[ 0088 ] The method may then comprise the step of presenting 338 the user with a selection of available tour information and/or products available for selection. This step may comprise querying a suitable database from the database server 206 and presenting selected tour products databases in accordance with at least one of the user's tour search criteria. The method 300 them may comprise the steps 340, 342, 344, 346 respectively for the selection, booking, validation and information gathering for each selected tour product as required. Again, the booking of the component may at this stage comprise a tentative booking to be confirmed once the itinerary has been completed and validated by the user prior to payment for the selected components. [ 0089 ] If the travel itinerary information initially entered by the user (i.e. locations, duration) is completely fulfilled by the selected hotel information, the process formulates a travel itinerary, step 350, which shows the details of all travel products in the itinerary booked by the used for validation by the user of all the selected tour components. If the method determines 348 that additional hotel information is required (e.g. for additional cities/locations or for un-accounted nights in a particular location) the method 300 returns to step 326 for selection by the user of additional hotel information as required.

[ 0090 ] If all hotel/tour information has been selected, step 350 presents to the user a generated trip details page corresponding to the basic travel components selected by the member user, including air travel components, hotels and/ tour products in each city, dates, number of travellers, pricing information for each component and the total price for all selected components and information on any bonus/rewards points that the user may be entitled to if the travel itinerary is confirmed by the user (step 252).

[ 0091 ] Once the user has confirmed the components of the itinerary, the method may comprise generating 354 confirmation notification to the user comprising the details of the booked and confirmed itinerary e.g. an order number, explanatory notes on the itinerary and individual components as required, order total price, total bonus/rewards points and total redeem points, deposit and balance amount and due date to pay. The confirmation notification may also provides a variety of payment options e.g. online credit card payment, bank funds transfer or cash payment options. The method 300 once the itinerary is confirmed may forward a message, for example an email, to the user with relevant information on the booking. The user may then be presented with the option 356 of payment via the portal site over the network. If the user is comfortable with such a process and wishes to proceed immediately, they are presented 358 to an online payment process procedure, else the method ends 260 and the user must make other suitable payment arrangements.

[ 0092 ] The confirmed travel itinerary is then stored against the user's account recording all trip details (overall order and each tour component product). The travel portal site may provide additional services to the user with editable functions for changing dates of the tour products booked; changing details of the contact person; editing, deleting or adding travellers' information or number of travellers within the constraints of the particular components selected; or providing payment services for itinerary components or outstanding amounts.

[ 0093 ] It will be appreciated that the method 300 is accessible both to fully independent users who wish to plan and book their own individual travel arrangements, or additionally, the method may be utilised by travel agencies to provide services to their clients.

Self-organised Group (SOG) Tours

[ 0094 ] Additional services that are enabled by the travel portal site offering user- selectable basic travel components for complete itinerary production comprises the ability for individual users to create and promote their own group tours. Until now, general tourists have been offered few, if any, opportunities to create and advertise their own group tours by their own self-made itineraries. They are typically required to either join existing group tours that may not fully meet their expectations or interests (e.g. food, entertainment, accommodation, locations visited, length to stay, etc), or make up their personally flavoured tour itineraries by vast searching, comparison, and selection from many different sources requiring significant amount of time and effort, and ultimately may find it very difficult to spread the message to others to seek additional participants and/or obtain enough people to join their group tours to meet minimum number requirements often needed to obtain discounted tour pricing rates or indeed for the tour to proceed at all.

[ 0095 ] In the processes disclosed herein, a first user (the SOG creator) can create such a self-organised-group (SOG) tour which may be tailored to their individual desires, and then the user may chose to make the tour available for other users of the travel portal site of like-minded interests to join the SOG tour. This has the significant advantage that the SOG creator may be able to achieve group discounted tour options (e.g. price) or personalised timing and preference options by sharing their SOG tour with other users that would not normally be available to the individual traveller.

[ 0096 ] SOG tours enable individual users of the travel portal site to create their own group itineraries using the tools provided by the travel portal site. In an arrangement, the application server may provide a tour organisation application module 220 for formulating an itinerary of a customised tour. The tour organisation application module 220 may interface with other tools provided by the application server 206, for example, the travel plan application module 218 described above, such that the user is able to compile a complete tour itinerary from scratch utilising the functions and databases made available by the travel plan application module 218. Alternatively, the travel portal site may provide package and/or adjustable group tour itineraries. These package group tour itineraries may be based on common or popular SOG tours that individual users may have created. The package group tour itineraries may be adjustable/customisable so that the individual user selected the package tour can use selected itinerary as a starting point and modify the tour options to meed their individual requirements. Such customisable "package" tours may be stored in a particular database (e.g. database 230) on the database server 208. Additionally, the travel portal site may provide an further service to the SOG tour creator, whereby a completed tour itinerary is able to be submitted to the portal site for checking and validation by an expert tour operator. The expert operator may advise the SOG creator on pricing for the SOG tour and may optionally make suggestions for modifications to the itinerary for enhancement of the user experience whilst on the planned tour. SOG tours which have been validated and had any required deposit paid, may then be publicised to other users of the travel portal to attract them to join their preferred SOG Tours.

[ 0097 ] The SOG tour capabilities of the travel portal provide significant advantages to users, particularly tourists, to meet the genuine and great needs of the general public to create individualised and flexible group itineraries in streamlined processes and with no or minimal cost. The travel portal also provides a significant advantage in enabling the users to find travel companions with similar interests to participate in their SOG tours to take advantage of the pricing and itinerary advantages available with large tour groups.

[ 0098 ] Figures 4A and 4B describe an exemplary method 400 for creation by individual users of an SOG tour. In an exemplary arrangement, the method 400 provides a method for making up a group tour itinerary using a customised procedure from scratch (i.e. through use of the travel plan application module 218) or from a selection of customisable package itineraries which may be stored in a suitable database on the database server 208. The customised and validated tour is then published to the portal site's member community and the broader network community (e.g. over the internet). Any general tourists can browse for any suitable group tour and any member user can join such group tours. Again, Figure 4A shows the login procedure (steps 404 and 406) corresponding to that described above (with reference to steps 302, 304 and 306 of method 300) which may not be required if the user is already logged in to the portal site 200. The method 400 comprises presenting 408 the user with a SOG creation portal with option for selecting 410 the SOG creation mode for creating a SOG tour itinerary either using the DIY travel plan application module 218 and method 300 described above 320 or from a database of existing user-customisable tour itineraries 412. If the DIY procedure is selected, the user then proceeds through the DIY method 300 described above (step 422) to create the tour with available travel, hotel and/or local tour options. If instead, the user chooses to customise an existing package tour itinerary, then method 400 comprises accepting tour criteria from the user regarding the type of tour required, and presenting 414 the user with a selection of qualifying package tour itineraries matching the users criteria. The user then searches the qualifying package tours, selects a desired package tour and customises the package tour options as required (step 416) from available options. If required, the user next has the option 418 of adding additional components such as hotels and air travel components as needed. The method then provides 424 the user with an input page for entering information on the SOG tour e.g. tour name, requirements and other relevant information (such as a theme for the tour) etc as required.

[ 0099 ] The system then stores 426 the SOG tour in a suitable database (e.g. database 206 on database server 208) and forwards a request 428 for administrative validation by the portal site 200. The administrative validation may comprise a manual check 430 of the tour options by professional travel staff employed by the travel portal site to ensure that the selected tour components are compatible and may also including determination 430 of the tour costs. [ 0100 ] Once validated, the method comprises confirming the details and pricing of the tour with the SOG tour creator, and may require payment of a deposit to be held by the travel portal for the tour. The SOG Tour is then published on the travel portal 200 for viewing by other member users and general internet users. The publishing of the new SOG tour may comprise forwarding promotional notifications e.g. emails to member users that may be interested in such tours. The SOG tour creation process ends 448 and the SOG tour is then available to other member users. [ 0101 ] Figures 4C and 4D outline an exemplary process 450 for enabling other users of the travel portal site to review and join SOG tours created by member users. Users wishing to search and/or join SOG tours created by members initially enter 452 the SOG tour portal. The portal may initially display 456 available tours to the user for selection. The displayed tours initially may comprise newly created tours, or tours that may match the individual user's preferences (which may be stored on the database server of the portal site 200 and associated with the user). The user is provided with the option of querying 458 the SOG tour database with at least one said criteria to identify one or more qualifying SOG tours, and the system generates and shows 459 a qualifying SOG tours display to the member user from which to select 460 one or more tours from the qualifying SOG tours to obtain further information. If a selected tour is suitable, the method enabling the user to input 462, 464 a number of travellers to join the group tour and relevant traveller information. The method next queries 465 a SOG tours booking system to determine whether a selected SOG tour can be booked in accordance with the user entered information. If available, the system confirms the availability of the tour to the user (eg. via onscreen and/or email notification) and displays 466 a confirmation of the order to the user displaying relevant information such as order number, explanation notes, order total price, details of any bonuses/rewards available to the user on confirmation/payment of the order, pricing (including deposit and balance information) and due dates to pay. The user is then directed 468 to the payment process as before.

[ 0102 ] Once payment is received 470 (of Figure 4D) the order is considered confirmed and a notification confirming such is displayed on the user interface and/or forwarded/transmitted to the user e.g. via email or other means with relevant details of the confirmed tour. The member user is provided the opportunity and facilities to arrange for payment for the confirmed tour, eg. via a "member area" available from the portal site say for payment online via credit card or other means, or alternatively other payment options may be presented in accordance with the user's requirements. The SOG tour portal records all details of the contact person and number of travellers of the selected SOG tour to the SOG tour order database, validates the participation in the selected SOG tour once the full deposit from the member user has been received; sends notification(s) to the member user's registered contact details to confirm the receipt of payment and participation of the selected SOG tour; and notifies the users who have secured their place on the tour (e.g. through payment of a deposit) of the successful formation of the selected SOG tour (provided all minimum requirements for the tour to proceed have been met 476, 478), and the secured tour members are notified of the details for any final payments (e.g. amount, due date) required to secure operation of the tour. If the minimum requirements for the tour to proceed have not yet been met (i.e. insufficient confirmed participants) a check 490 is made as to whether the current date is past a particular cut-off date for the tour to proceed. If, so, then the system cancels 492 the tour for not meeting the minimum requirements and all deposits paid by members are refunded. If cut-off date has not passed, a further check on the final payment due-date is made 494 and extended 496 to the cut-off date as possible, else do nothing 498 and allow other users to join the tour.

[ 0103 ] Once the minimum requirements for the tour to proceed have been met, then the system confirms 480 with users booked on the tour that the tour can proceed and requests 482 final payment of tour costs from the secured users. Once all final payments have been received from the secured users, the system confirms the tour bookings with the provider of the tour component and forwards the final booking details to each participating users 486.

[ 0104 ] Again, this SOG method 400 can may be used by fully independent travellers for their own personalised tours, or by travel agencies who may create and offer tours to their clients.

[ 0105 ] In another arrangement of the SOG tour organisation procedure there is provided a travel booking system configured to enable a member user of a travel portal site to create and/or to book a SOG tour from a remote client terminal over a network. The system may comprise a terminal interface configured to enable data communication with one or more remote client terminals. The system may also comprise a database interface configured to enable data communication with a database comprising travel component data including data on air travel products, hotel products, car hire products, tour products, SOG tours etc. The database may be adapted as one or more related databases. One or more of the databases may be an external database. The system may further comprise a booking system configured to run an itinerary formulation system application thereon, said itinerary formulation system application being configured to: receive requests on travel component data from a user accessing the terminal interface from a client terminal, specifying one or more criteria corresponding to an itinerary to be booked by the user; query the database in accordance with at least one of the travel components requested; retrieving data meeting the user criteria and providing the data to the user for selection by the user for the formulation of a travel itinerary comprising a plurality of travel components which may be booked by the user via the terminal interface.

[ 0106 ] In a further arrangement still of the SOG tour organisation procedure, there is provided a computer program for controlling the operation of a computer processor to: process a SOG tour request to obtain one or more SOG tour criteria corresponding to a trip to be booked by a member user; interrogate SOG tour databases in accordance with at least one of said SOG tour criteria to identify one or more qualifying SOG tours; generate a qualifying SOG tours interface to enable a member user to select from the qualifying SOG tours a plurality of preferred SOG tours; generate a detailed SOG tour information page when it is selected to enable a member user to read through the in-depth information of each interested SOG tour; enable the member user to specify a number of travellers to join the SOG tour; enable the member user to confirm the booking by paying the deposit online before the due date; record selected SOG tour, contact person and travellers data to the SOG tours Order Databases; generate an Order Successful page with automated Order number and deposit payment dates and amounts; generate an Order Successful email with automated Order number and deposit payment dates and amounts to the member user's registered email account; generate a selected SOG tour forming successful email with final payment amount and due dates to each order's registered email accounts; confirm the receiving of final payment and participating of the selected SOG tour by emails to the registered email account of each order; record the detailed data of final payment, price, bonus points and redeemable points of each order of the selected SOG tour, or the refund for the failed SOG tour to the SOG tours Order database. Also provided is a computer readable medium storing computer code comprising a computer program as described above. Network Marketing Systems and Methods

[ 0107 ] In addition to the travel-related services disclosed above, the travel portal may also provide systems and methods of marketing and promotion of the portal site to obtain, maintain and reward users of the portal.

[ 0108 ] Whilst the following marketing/promotional methods and system are described in the example of a travel-related portal operating over a public network, the methods and systems are readily transferable between other portal sites which operate over public networks for the purpose of obtaining and retaining user memberships. It is envisaged therefore that the methods and systems described herein are generally applicable to many applications. [ 0109 ] With the vast amount of information available to individuals over public networks such as the internet, particularly the easy access to various travel-related online sites and strong competition among online providers, individuals tend to search more, get more quotes and often choose those travel products which appear appealing primarily on the basis of cost alone. However, individuals often neglect to consider the true overall cost or the disadvantages of such cheaper product alternatives. Often such disadvantages only become apparent when they actually experience these cheaper travel products for example wasted time in planning, wasted or inadequate time between connections, potentially leading to lower holiday quality or value for money.

[ 0110 ] To overcome such deficiencies in the common process of researching and planning, for example, travel arrangement, it is recognised that individual users appreciate sites that not only provide cheap products and services, but also with quality consultation and other related services. All of these benefits can be provided simply if a loyal group of individual users can be formed.

[ 0111 ] One method of forming such a group or community, may be in the provision of a referral program for each of the members of the community and Figure 5 depicts a particular arrangement of a member referral program. Such a referral program may be designed to reward "Referrers" (i.e. individual users) with a fixed percentage of their "Referees" (new individual members) expenditure with the portal site. Through the provision of quality products and services at competitive pricing to individual member users, it is reasonable to expect that existing individual members will be willing to refer (503) their friends, relatives and associates to join as new individual members 507, particularly where the existing members are offered reward/bonus points or sales commissions at no cost to the individual. Such reward/bonus points and/or sales commissions may be in the range of between 1% and 3% of the amount their referees spend with the portal site. In other arrangements, the reward/bonus points and/or sales commissions may be in the range of between 1% and 2% and in particular arrangements may be about 1%, 1.3% or 1.6% of referee purchases, wherein the amount of commission/bonuses may derjend on the type of membership class of the individual or affiliate members. This reward/bonus scheme may be offered to individual users for the entire duration they remain registered with the portal site. In particular arrangements, the referral rewards/bonuses may be limited to points which the individual user member may only redeem through the purchase of products or services from the portal site. In other arrangement, the referral rewards/bonuses may be awarded to the individual member in addition to any other rewards/bonus points the individual member may earn through personal purchases from the portal site. The additional referral reward/bonuses may be tiered by member classes such that loyal members (who for example, make significant product/service purchases through the portal site and/or who refer prescribed numbers of new member users) receive greater rewards. In some arrangements, the bonus to the referrer may comprise a credit amount for future products or services purchased with the portal site, or alternatively, sales commissions may be paid directly to the referrer as a cash payment, which may depend on the membership class of the referrer. [ 0112 ] In particular arrangements of the marketing system, corporate clients may be encouraged to become affiliate members of the portal site, and may provide means such as advertisement 502 to advertise the portal site to the affiliate member's clients (e.g. via an advertisement or link on a website owned by the affiliate member), whereby if an individual user becomes a member user 506 of the portal site via the recommendation from the affiliate member, then the affiliate member becomes the referrer to the new individual member user (the referee). In this arrangement, the affiliate member may then be entitled to bonuses/rewards/sales commissions based on the amount of expenditure that the new referee places through the portal site. Such sales commissions may be paid to the affiliate member as a monetary payment at regular intervals. For example, the affiliate member may operate a web site over the internet and may advertise the portal site via a link on its own website. If an individual (not an existing member of the portal site) viewing the affiliate member's website clicks the advertisement and arrives at the portal site, and subsequently becomes a member (on the same visit), then the affiliate member will be listed as the referrer of the new member user and be entitled to sales commissions as described herein. The affiliate member referral and individual member referral systems may be identical in nature and operational characteristics, although the percentage returned to the referrer member as bonuses/rewards/commission may differ between membership classes. In particular arrangements of the marketing system, referees may be prohibited to change their referrers. If an attempt to modify referral details associated with an individual member's membership account is identified, the individual's membership may be disqualified and all bonuses earned suspended. By implementing such a policy, it is believed that a lifetime referral system may be successful as it rewards referrers for the lifetime membership of individuals which they refer to become members of the portal site. [ 0113 ] The present inventor has overcome significant difficulties in implementing the above reward/bonus schemes. The primary difficulty arises since, unlike rewards schemes where a provider may award a member for purchases, and which only involves transactions between two parties, the present system is a three-party transaction system. That is the portal site provider (Party 1) registers an affiliate or a non-referred individual (Party 2) with a first membership class (e.g. affiliate) on the portal site. Party 2 then promotes the portal site through its own advertisements or word of mouth, in attempt to attract an individual (Party 3) to join the portal site (Party 1) as an individual user member. Party 3 becomes a member user with Party 1 with a second membership class (e.g. individual). The different membership classes typically will have different access restrictions governing the bonuses/commissions the member can receive and the type of products/services available from the portal site. [ 0114 ] Referring to Figures 8 A and 8B, the referral system is depicted with two different membership classes. Affiliate member 810 is a member (Party 2) of the portal site 200 (Party 1) and the referrer 820 for a plurality 830 of individual members 812 and 814 (each Party 3). Each member 812 and 814 is an individual user member of the portal site 200 (referee), and is able to purchase products/services from the portal site 200. The user account for each of the individual users 812, 814 may be permanently linked to the referrer 810. Each individual member earns personal bonuses rewards for private expenditure (for example, say about 5% to 10% of the total expenditure by the user) which may be awarded as points or credits to be used against future purchases from the portal site 200. In addition, the affiliate member referrer 810 receives a predefined percentage commission 822 based on the total expenditure for each of their associated referees 830 comprising individual members 812, 814.

[ 0115 ] As will be appreciated, not all individual users of the site are necessarily referred by another party, and may be a direct member 816 of portal site 200 with no referrer rewards/commissions being awarded to any other party based on the user's 816 expenditure. Of course, these non referred individual users will still earn personal bonuses/rewards for their own private expenditure and are able to refer further individual member users to join the portal site and earn referral bonuses/rewards for their referees' expenditure with the portal site. [ 0116 ] As seen in Figure 8B, an individual user member 814 of portal site 200 may also be a referrer 820 for additional individual members 818. Individual members 818 are again members of the portal site 200, with individual member user 814 recorded in their user profile as the referrer. Members 818 earn personal bonuses rewards for their own private expenditure, and individual member 814 earns bonus points/credits based on the expenditure of their associated referees 832. Similarly, the individual member membership class may be a tiered membership class comprising a number of levels (e.g. Normal, VIP, Platinum, etc) wherein each tier may be based on the number of associated referees 832 associated with each member and/or the amount of expenditure the individual user makes with the portal site 200. Again, the individual 814 member's bonuses (reward points/credits) may increase in proportional to membership class and/or the number of associated referees 832. For example, an initial (Normal) tier level may attract a reward (e.g. sales commission, bonuses, credits, redeemable points, etc) of about 1% of their referee's 832 expenditure. Higher membership tiers (e.g. VIP, Platinum, etc) may attract higher rewards (e.g. about 1.3%, 1.6% or more of referee's 832 expenditure). (Note: reward rates are representative only and may be modified as appropriate by the portal site 200). For the individual member 814, referral bonuses are awarded in addition to any bonuses the member 814 earns from his own personal expenditure with the portal site 200.

[ 0117 ] In addition to the above, individual membership class tiers may have limited access restrictions for access to product/services available from the portal site. For example, in the particular arrangements of a travel portal site as described above, different individual member tiers may be limited to creation of a certain number of SOG tours, say, within a given time period. For example, normal individual members may be permitted to only create 1 or 2 tours within a given time period, whereas VIP individual members may create 2-3 SOG tours, Platinum individual members may be able to create 3-5 SOG tours, etc.

[ 0118 ] In addition, affiliate membership classes may also be restricted to products and/or services offered by the portal site. For example, in the arrangements of a travel portal site described as above, affiliate members may not be permitted to create travel itineraries or SOG tours or purchase such products from the portal site. Access to such services for commercial partners (for example travel agents) may be restricted to a further membership class e.g. Partner members. The Partner membership may contain but not only limited to normal partner and exclusive partner, etc. The Partner membership class may be permitted to refer other individual members, although in other arrangements, of the system, partner members may not be permitted to refer other members to the portal site. The Partner membership class may be given greater, limited or no access to other services offered by the portal site. For example, in the arrangements of a travel portal site as described above, exclusive partner members/travel agents may be permitted to create between 5 and 10 SOG tours within a given time period, while normal partner members /travel agents may not be permitted to create any SOG tour, but only to join such SOG tours created by individual members or exclusive partner members.

[ 0119 ] In a further exemplary arrangement of the marketing method there is provided a method for promotion of first party services, the method comprising the steps of: enabling a second party to promote the services of the first party to a third party, the second party being a member of the first party and wherein the second party provides means for the third party to become a member of the first party; designating the second party as a referrer associated with the third party; providing services of the first party to be purchased by the third party for payment to the first party; and, on the basis of the services purchased from the first party by the third party, awarding the second party a referral reward equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by the third party. The second party may promote the services of the first party to a plurality of third parties, and the second party may be awarded a reward equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by each of the plurality of third parties. The means for the third party to become a member of the first party may be an association with a portal site of the first party, the portal site being configured to register members of the first party. [ 0120 ] The second party may be a member of the first party with a first membership class, the third party may be a member of the first party with a second membership class, wherein the first and second membership classes having differing access provisions to services offered by the first party. In this arrangement, the referral reward awarded to the second party may be a monetary payment equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by each referee associated with the second party. In other arrangements, the second party and the third party may be of the second membership class, and wherein the referral reward awarded to the second party is limited to products and/or services provided by the first party.

[ 0121 ] The method may further comprise the steps of: enabling the third party to promote the services of the first party to a further third party, the third party being a member of the first party and wherein the third party provides means for the further third party to become a member of the first party; designating the third party as a referrer associated with the further third party; providing products and services of the first party to be purchased by the further third party for payment to the first party; and on the basis of the products and services purchased from the first party by the further third party, paying the third party a commission equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by the further third party.

[ 0122 ] The third party may promote the services of the first party to a plurality of further third parties, and the third party may be awarded a referral reward equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by each of the plurality of further third parties.

[ 0123 ] Figure 9 shows an exemplary arrangement of the referral membership associations and rewards in an arrangement of the marketing system. The marketing method may be provided for promotion of the products/service of a first party 901. The first party may be a portal site 200 as described above. The method may enable a second party 903 to promote the services of the first party to a third party 907. The second party 903 may be a member of the first party 900. The second party may be a corporate or affiliated member 810 of the portal site 200 (first party 901) and may be a member with a first membership class. The second party may also be an individual member of the portal site 200 and may be a member with a second membership class. The first and second membership classes may have differing access provisions/rights to product/services offered - -

by the first party 901. The second party provides means for the third party to become a member of the first party. Where the second party 903 is an affiliate member, the means may be a link to the portal site 200 of the first party 901 on a website offered by the second party 903. Where the second party is an individual member 816, the means may be a direction to the third party 907 to indicate to the first party of the referral to the first party 901 by the individual member 816.

[ 0124 ] The means for the third party 907 to become a member of the first party 901 may be an association with a portal site 200 of the first party 901, where the portal site 200 is configured to register members of the first party 901. The portal site 200, when registering the new third party member as a member of the first party 901, which will typically be of an individual membership type of the second membership class, designates the second party 903 as the referrer associated with the new third party member (e.g. 812 or 814). It will be appreciated that the second party 903 may promote the services of the first party 901 to a plurality of third parties 907, and the second party 903 may be awarded a reward equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by each of the plurality of third parties.

[ 0125 ] Products and/or services of the first party 901 are provided to be purchased by the third parties, and payment for any purchased services is paid to the first party 901. On the basis of the services purchased from the first party 901 by the third parties 907, the first party awards a referral bonus to the second party 903 where the value of the bonus is equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by the third party.

[ 0126 ] The form of the referral bonus may be dependant upon the membership class of the second party. For example, where the second party 903 is a corporate/affiliate member 810 with the first membership class, the referral reward awarded may be a commission which, for example may be paid to the affiliate member 810 on a regular basis as a cash payment. In this arrangement, the referral reward awarded to the second party may be a monetary payment equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by each referee associated with the second party.

[ 0127 ] Alternatively in other arrangements, the second party and the third party may be of the second membership class, and wherein the referral reward awarded to the second party is limited to products and/or services provided by the first party. For example, where the second party is an individual member 816 with the second membership class (i.e. the same membership class as the third parties referred by the individual member 816) the referral reward awarded may be a credit for products and/or services offered by the first party 901 , for example in the form of bonus points or rewards that may be redeemed by the individual member 816 from the first party 901 portal site 200.

[ 0128 ] The third party 907 members of the first party 901 may also be able to promote the services of the first party 901 to a further third party 909. In this case the third party 907 acts in a very similar manner to an individual member 816 second party 903 as described above, wherein the first party 901 when registering a further third party 909 as an individual member 848 of the first party 901, designates the referring individual member 814 third party 907 as a referrer associated with the further third party 909. Similarly, products and services of the first party 901 are provided to the individual member 848 (the further third party 909) for purchase, with payment for such products/services made to the first party 901; and on the basis of the products/services purchased from the first party 901 by the further third party 909, the associated referrer (i.e. individual member 814) is awarded a referral reward by the first party 901 equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by the further third party 909. Similarly, the third party 814 may promote the services of the first party 901 to a plurality of further third parties 909, and the third party 814 may be awarded a referral reward equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by each of the plurality of further third parties 909. As will be appreciated, the further third party 909, once an individual member of the first party, can act as a third party as described above with reference to referral of new individual members to the portal site 200 of the first party 901 and receive referral awards in the same manner. That is, once a member of the first party, and individual member may refer other individual members to the site and receive a referral award from the first party.

[ 0129 ] Each individual member may or may not be associated with a referrer who is a member of the first party, depending on whether or not they were referred to the portal site 200, or found the portal site 200 independently and joined as a member without being referred by an existing member. In preferred arrangements of the marketing methods and systems, whilst each referrer may have many referees (i.e. a wide network of referees), the awarding of referral awards may be limited to only those members directly referred to the first party by referring member (second, third or further third parties). That is, the network of referees that members of the first party receive referral awards (bonuses, commissions, etc) is wide (i.e. any number), but shallow (i.e. only those directly referred by the referrer, or only one membership association deep). Thus, members are not rewarded for the referrals made by their own referees, thus providing incentive for referrers to vigorously promote the first party services and obtain many direct referees, thus to maximise their own rewards (e.g. bonuses, commissions, etc). [ 0130 ] In arrangements of the marketing system, there is therefore provided an easy but effective method to reward any existing members' (the referrer) referral of new individual members (the referees) with a prescribed percentage of the referees' expenditure with the portal site. The method may comprises receiving via a communications interface a new individual member application with referring individual member's number, or automatically assigned affiliate member's number if the applicant is referred by an affiliate member's website. The new member application is validated to approve the membership of the applicant after checking the information provided, and a notification is provided to the new member (e.g. via email sent to the applicant's registered email account) of receipt of their application. The notification may including the new member applicant's user name, password, personal new member number, (if applicable) the name and member number of an existing portal site member who has referred the new member applicant, and related information for their new member account. The notification may also include a request for the new member applicant to provide proof of identification, for example personal photograph, personal ID. The method further comprises checking and verifying the new member applicant's credentials. The new member applicants right to right to earn rewards/bonuses from the portal site operator may be withheld until the new member applicant's credentials have been sufficiently verified. The new member's application may be cancelled and any existing rewards/bonus entitlements may be withdrawn by the portal site operator if it is found that the new member applicant has provided false or misleading personal information and/or credentials.

[ 0131 ] In some arrangements, the new member's application may be denied, if it is discovered during the credential verification procedure that the applicant had previously been an individual member of the portal site with a different referrer member that that recording on the new member application (for example, say if the applicant cancelled a previous membership with a different associated referrer and wishes to rejoin as a member of the portal site with a new referrer). If the application is successful, the portal site operator may award referral bonuses/commissions may to the individual member referrer, which may be calculated at a prescribed percentage of the new member applicant's (the referee) expenditure with the travel portal site 200.

[ 0132 ] In a further arrangement there is provided an easy and effective way to enable individual member or affiliate member referrers earn extra bonus points or sales commissions. The system may comprise: a remote terminal interface configured to enable data communication via a communications interface; a database interface configured to enable data communication with one or more member databases; a member management system server configured to interface with a member management system application thereon, said member management system application being adapted to provide the steps of the method as described above in the first arrangement of the marketing system.

[ 0133 ] In a further arrangement still, there is provided a computer program for controlling the operation of a computer processor to: via a communications interface a new individual member application with referring individual member's number; process the individual membership application; recording the referrer's member number and associating the referrer member information with the applicant's detailed data to the member database; validate the new member applicant's membership, providing notification to the new member of a successful application; calculate and record individual member referee's rewards/bonuses earned through expenditure of the referee from the travel portal site 200; record referral bonuses/commissions to the referrer's member account, which may be calculated at a prescribed percentage of the referee member's expenditure with the travel portal site 200. Also provided is a computer readable medium storing computer code comprising a computer program as described above. [ 0134 ] As can be appreciated, marketing can be quite an expensive practice and may not be affordable by many businesses, especially new start up companies. The result of such marketing may also be hard to predict. The total or majority of marketing expenditure will not be received by future customers or rather "wasted" by marketing media. Also, the customer loyalty created by such marketing may be quite limited. [ 0135 ] Affiliate programs widely used on internet websites today provide a relatively good channel for marketing for companies of all sizes, and typically generates some income for the website owner by "Click and Pay" programs. Current systems also market the linking of companies' business to promote access to a larger pool of potential customers at a relatively low cost. But the overall result of this "Click and Pay" program is limited as linking on affiliate websites may not generate a strong willingness for site visitors to click and the marketing companies may have difficulty in retaining potential buyers when the buyers are transferred to visit the marketing companies' sites.

[ 0136 ] In further arrangements, the first party may offer incentives to visitors (third parties) of the portal site to become members thereof. The incentive may be a prize offered by the first party. The prize may include products and/or services offered by the first party to be redeemed by a third party who validly wins the prize. The third party may be required to be a member of the first party to validly win or redeem the prize. The third party may be required to have a predetermined membership class to validly win or redeem the prize. The offer of the prize by the first party may provide a incentive for third and or further third parties to become a member of the first party. The offer of the prize by the first party may provide a incentive for second, third and/or further third parties to further promote the services of the first party.

[ 0137 ] In an exemplary arrangement there is provided an online marketing method to attract more frequent visitors to a portal site, sign in more individual members to a portal site and gain more orders from individual members. The method comprises generating winning prizes (such as free souvenir gifts, or free or heavily discounted products and/or services offered by the portal site), and scheduling the availability/existence of the prize to be displayed by a portal site system on a portal site access interface in a selected time period (e.g. per minute, per hour, per day etc). The availability of the prize may be advertised via the access interface by the inclusion 602 (of Figure 6) of an additional transient icon or link to be displayed/transmitted by the portal access interface (e.g. where the access interface as a web page, the a floating or additional embedded link on the web page which may be 'clicked' by a visitor viewing the web page) in the scheduled time period. If the icon or link is not clicked by a user within a certain time period (e.g. a prescribed number of seconds and/or minutes) the prize winning icon may disappear or otherwise be removed from the access interface after a prescribed period of time.

[ 0138 ] Referring to Figure 6, when a user or visitor accessing/viewing the portal site access interface 'clicks' or otherwise activates the prize icon/link, the portal site performs a check 606 to determine whether the user/visitor is a registered and/or validated individual member of the portal site and currently logged on to the portal site with their personal member account. If the user/visitor is not logged in, the system may then display a prompt via the access interface for the user to log in 614 to the portal site and claim the prize. In some arrangements, prizes may only be won if the user/visitor is logged in to the portal site when the icon is clicked, therefore, when the user logs in, they may be returned to the access site and be required to click the prize icon/link again (provided the prize is still available). Thus, if the user is not logged in when the prize icon is clicked, the system may generate a notification that is displayed/transmitted to the user/visitor (e.g. via a message box), for example: "If you are already a registered and validated individual member, please login to click and win the prize again. If you are not a registered individual member, please register first." If the logged in user is an individual user member 608 (i.e. not a corporate or affiliate/partner member who is not able to claim prizes - in this case, no prize is awarded 620) and has not won any prize offered by the portal site within a certain time period (i.e. a check is made 610 to ensure that a prize has not already been won by that user within the specified time period e.g. that day), then the system may generating a notification (e.g. the user may be re-directed to a new web page) with detailed prize information and details of how the individual member user may claim the prize. The details of the prize winner are recorded in a suitable database on the database server 208 of the portal site for the management of future prize redemptions, etc.

Donor Affiliation System [ 0139 ] In further arrangements of the systems and methods disclosed above, additional services offered by the portal site may comprise a donor system 700 as depicted in Figure 7 targeted at assisting non profit organizations (NPOs) who rely partly or mainly on donations contributed by the general public or particular groups of people. To fulfil their needs, such NPO's need help from lots of volunteers or media promotion at no or low cost to spread their message out and to collect donations. This process can quite often be expensive, even though it may be conducted/assisted by many volunteers. Ultimately, the outcome is that a not insignificant portion of the donations must be allocated to payment of expenses incurred in securing such donations rather than being put to use for the donated purpose. Also, as financial hardship impacts on an increasing proportion of individuals, donations become more difficult to obtain.

[ 0140 ] Whilst the following marketing/promotional methods and system are described in the example of a travel-related portal operating over a public network, the methods and systems are readily transferable between other portal sites which operate over public networks for the purpose of obtaining and retaining user memberships. It is envisaged therefore that the methods and systems described herein are generally applicable to many applications.

[ 0141 ] In an exemplary arrangement, there is provided a method for making donations to a beneficiary, the method comprising the steps of, for a first party providing products and/or services to a second party, wherein the second party is a member of the first party and the second party is awarded rewards by the first party, the reward value being equivalent to a predefined percentage of the second party's expenditure on the first party products and/or services, enabling the second party to donate at least a portion of the rewards to the beneficiary. The second party may donate all the rewards awarded by the first party to the beneficiary. The second party may donate a plurality of portions of the rewards awarded thereto by the first party to a corresponding plurality of beneficiaries.

[ 0142 ] The referral system 500 disclosed above can be modified to suit the situation of donations to NPOs (beneficiaries) to alleviate some of the pressures that NPOs face in seeking donations from individuals or groups. For example, as depicted in Figure 7, the NPO (beneficiary) may register 704, 706 as a user with a certain membership class (e.g. affiliate member (e.g. 810 of Figure 8A), corporate member, NPO member, etc may be examples) within the travel portal site 200 (the first party). The beneficiary NPO membership class may operate very similarly to that of the affiliate membership class as depicted in Figure 8A as follows. The NPO member 850 may "invite" 855 (708 of Figure 7) individuals 860 (the second party) or target groups of individuals to also register as users 852 of the travel portal by visiting 710 the home page of the travel portal site 200 or by clicking the links on NPO's website 711. The newly registered users 852 may, on registering, chose to nominate the NPO member 850 as a "Beneficiary" such that any bonus/rewards points that the new individual users accumulate through their personal purchases from the travel portal may be allocated to the NPO Beneficiary 850. In some arrangements, the NPO is not paid a "commission" as a percentage of the individual member's expenditure, but rather the normal bonuses/rewards that the individual member 852 would earn from their personal expenditure is instead "donated" 712 (either wholly or in part) to the NPO member 850, which the NPO member 850 may then redeem as a cash donation 714. In some instances, the new individual users 852 may be offered the option of selecting either all or a particular portion of their accumulated rewards to be allocated to a particular Referrer of their own choosing. Such rewards may then be issued to the NPO 850 by the travel portal site 200 in the form of a cash donation. In other arrangements, the NPO may also be recorded as a "referrer" for the newly registered individual member and, in addition to donated personal bonuses of members, the NPO may also earn referral commissions similarly to that of the affiliate member class described above, particularly when the individual members 852 are referred to the portal site by an internet advertisement link, wherein the commission, as before, is calculated at the fixed percentage of the referee's expenditure with the travel portal site 200 and paid 714 in the form of cash to the NPO member 850. In particular arrangements, the details of individual referees and donation amounts may also be provided to the NPO referrer with the consent of each individual referee. In other arrangements, still, existing members may be given the option at any time to allocate a desired portion of the bonuses/rewards that they would be entitled to receive on the basis of their personal expenditure with the portal site 200. This optional donation facility may be configurable by the portal site individual members and may be modified by the individual member at any time, say if there was a desire to change the portion donated or to change the beneficiary of the individuals' donations.

[ 0143 ] The above described donation enabling method provides significant advantages to the individual donor users 850 (donors) and the NPOs 850 alike. For example, the NPO 850 is able to promote the portal site 200 to targeted users 852 and obtain donations with minimal initial and ongoing cost, and individual users 852 are able to support a chosen NPO 850 as they utilise the products/services offered by the portal site 200 at little or no additional cost. As can be seen, this system 700 has wide-ranging applicability to many varied user-based programs and applications, often with minimal additional setup or configuration changes to the core processes of the particular systems and thus provides significant advantages to all parties. [ 0144 ] It will be appreciated that the methods/apparatus/devices/systems described/illustrated above at least substantially provide methods and systems for enabling and implementing travel itinerary and tour planning by individual users over a network, various marketing systems and methods for promoting a portal site on a network, and methods and systems for enabling beneficiary programs to NPOs via a portal site on a network.

[ 0145 ] The systems and methods described herein, and/or shown in the drawings, are presented by way of example only and are not limiting as to the scope of the invention. Unless otherwise specifically stated, individual aspects and components of the systems and methods may be modified, or may have been substituted therefore known equivalents, or as yet unknown substitutes such as may be developed in the future or such as may be found to be acceptable substitutes in the future. The systems and methods may also be modified for a variety of applications while remaining within the scope and spirit of the claimed invention, since the range of potential applications is great, and since it is intended that the present systems and methods be adaptable to many such variations.

Claims

CLAIMS:

1. A method for compiling and booking of a plurality of basic travel components in a travel itinerary, the method comprising: providing a portal site accessible to users via a communications interface; receiving an enquiry from a user for a plurality of basic travel components comprising at least two different travel classes; retrieving basic travel component information from database in response to the user's enquiry; processing and transmitting retrieved basic travel component data to the user via the communications interface, the transmitted basic travel component data comprising basic travel components classified in at least two different travel classes; facilitating selection by the user of a plurality of the transmitted basic travel components; and formulating a travel itinerary for the user comprising the selected plurality of basic travel components of more than one travel class for facilitating booking of each of the selected basic travel components in the travel itinerary.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the travel classes are selected from the group comprising: air travel, land travel, sea travel, entry tickets, reservations, meals, accommodation, and tours.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising the step of facilitating the acceptance of a single payment from the user for all basic travel components of the itinerary.

4. A method as claimed in claims 1 to 3 further comprising the steps of; facilitating the formation by a user of an itinerary of a customised tour; validating the customised tour itinerary; publishing the customised tour itinerary at least on the portal site to a plurality of further users; and facilitating interested further users to join the customised tour.

5. A method for facilitating the formation and booking of a plurality of basic travel components in a travel itinerary, the method comprising: providing a portal site accessible from a client server over a network, the portal site comprising: an application server comprising at least a travel plan application module adapted for querying a database server comprising at least one database to obtain basic travel component information over a plurality of travel classes; s accepting enquiries from a user connected via a client terminal to the portal site for a plurality of basic travel components, the basic travel components comprising a plurality of different travel classes; processing the user enquiry in the travel plan application module to querying the database server via a the database access interface to retrieve basic travel componento information in response to the users enquiry; displaying the basic travel component information to the user in a self- contained user interface; facilitating the selection of a plurality of basic travel components from the user interface for the formation of a travel itinerary comprising a plurality of basic travels components of more than one travel class; and facilitating the booking of each of the basic travel components in the travel itinerary from the self-contained user interface

6. A method as claimed in claim 5 further comprise facilitating the acceptance of a single payment from the user for all basic travel components of the itinerary. 0

7. A method as claimed in either claim 5 or claim 6 wherein the application server further comprises a tour organisation application module accessible by a user from a client terminal via the access interface; the method further comprising: using the tour organisation application module, facilitating the formation of an itinerary of a customised tour using the travel plan application module; 5 validating the customised tour itinerary; publishing the customised tour itinerary at least on the portal site to a plurality of users of the portal site; and facilitating interested users to join the customised tour

8. A travel booking system comprising: 0 a memory for storing data and program instructions; a communications interface for receiving and transmitting data via a communications network; a processor coupled to the memory and the communications interface, the processor adapted to: providing a portal site accessible to users via the communications interface; receiving an enquiry via the communications interface from the user via the communications interface for a plurality of basic travel components, comprising at least two different travel classes; retrieving basic travel component data from a database in response to the user enquiry; processing and transmitting retrieved travel component data to the user via the communications interface, the transmitted basic travel component data comprising basic travel components classified in at least two different travel classes; facilitating selection by the user of a plurality of the transmitted basic travel components via the communications interface; and formulating a travel itinerary for the user comprising a plurality of basic travel components of more than one travel class for facilitating booking of each of the selected basic travel components in the travel itinerary.

9. A system as claimed in claim 8 wherein the travel itinerary is used for facilitating booking of each of the selected basic travel components in the travel itinerary.

10. A system as claimed in claim 8 wherein the system further comprises at least one database for storing the basic travel component data.

11. A system as claimed in any one of claims 8 to 10 wherein the travel classes are selected from the group comprising: air travel, land travel, sea travel, entry tickets, reservations, meals, accommodation, and tours.

12. A system as claimed in any one of claims 8 to 11 wherein the processor is further adapted for facilitating the acceptance of a single payment from the user for all basic travel components of the itinerary.

13. A system as claimed in any one of claims 8 to 12 wherein the processor is further adapted for: facilitating the formation of an itinerary of a customised tour; validating the customised tour itinerary; publishing the customised tour itinerary at least on the portal site to a plurality of users of the portal site; and facilitating interested users to join the customised tour.

14. A computer readable storage medium having a computer program recorded thereon, the program being executable by a computer apparatus, said computer program comprising: computer software program code for receiving an enquiry via the communications interface from the user via the communications interface for a plurality of basic travel components, comprising at least two different travel classes; computer software program code for retrieving basic travel component data from a database in response to the user enquiry; computer software program code for processing and transmitting retrieved travel component data to the user via the communications interface, the transmitted basic travel component data comprising basic travel components classified in at least two different travel classes; computer software program code for facilitating selection by the user of a plurality of the transmitted basic travel components via the communications interface; and computer software program code for formulating a travel itinerary for the user comprising a plurality of basic travel components of more than one travel class for facilitating booking of each of the selected basic travel components in the travel itinerary.

15. A computer program comprising computer software program code to make a computer execute a procedure to execute the steps of: providing a portal site accessible to users via a communications interface; receiving an enquiry via the communications interface from the user via the communications interface for a plurality of basic travel components, comprising at least two different travel classes; retrieving basic travel component data from a database in response to the user enquiry; processing and transmitting retrieved travel component data to the user via the communications interface, the transmitted basic travel component data comprising basic travel components classified in at least two different travel classes; facilitating selection by the user of a plurality of the transmitted basic travel components via the communications interface; and formulating a travel itinerary for the user comprising a plurality of basic travel components of more than one travel class for facilitating booking of each of the selected basic travel components in the travel itinerary.

16. A marketing method for promotion of first party services, the method comprising the steps of: enabling a second party to promote the services of the first party to a third party, the second party being a member of the first party and wherein the second party provides means for the third party to become a member of the first party; designating the second party as a referrer associated with the third party; providing services of the first party to be purchased by the third party for payment to the first party; and on the basis of the services purchased from the first party by the third party, paving awarding the second party a referral award equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by the third party.

17. A method as claimed in claim 16 wherein the second party promotes the services of the first party to a plurality of third parties, and the second party is awarded a commission or bonus referral award equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by each of the plurality of third parties.

18. A method as claimed in claim 16 wherein the means for the third party to become a member of the first party is an association with a portal site of the first party, the portal site being configured to register members of the first party.

19. A method as claimed in claim 16 wherein the second party is a member of the first party with a first membership class, the third party is a member of the first party with a second membership class, the first and second membership classes having differing access provisions to services offered by the first party.

20. A method as claimed in claim 19 wherein the referral reward awarded to the second party is a monetary payment equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by each referee associated with the second party.

21. A method as claimed in claim 19 wherein the second party and the third party are members of the second membership class, and wherein the referral reward awarded to the second party comprises products and/or services provided by the first party.

22. A method as claimed in any of claims 16 to 19 further comprising the steps of: enabling the third party to promote the services of the first party to a further third party, the third party being a member of the first party and wherein the third party provides means for the further third party to become a member of the first party; designating the third party as a referrer associated with the further third party; providing services of the first party to be purchased by the further third party for payment to the first party; and on the basis of the services purchased from the first party by the further third party, awarding the third party a referral award equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by the third party.

23. A method as claimed in claim 22 wherein the third party promotes the services of the first party to a plurality of further third parties, and awarding the third party a referral reward equivalent to a predefined percentage of expenditure made by each of the plurality of further third parties