TAS Holdings
While the benefits of Travellers' Aid Society Membership are known, most do not pay attention to the investment arm, TAS Holdings, which is a (wholly owned) MegaCorp on its own. They own the largest travel service in the Imperium, the most respected news service, with interest in hotels and hostels, shipping and passenger lines, print, holo and vid production and services. Full knowledge of the holdings is unknown as it is a private, wholly owned company and thus does not publish company reports.
Please see the following AAB articles for more information:
TAS Holdings
The first 3 businesses TAS invested in were travel agencies, travel advisory service, and book publishing.
Travel services:
- Travel Agency: Started as a way to get independent ship owners together with independent travelers. Early travel was tough in some areas without scheduled service. Rates and service varied, haggling was the norm. TAS worked with the ship owners and travelers to develop standard rates and services, and then selling tickets redeemable on many ships. Now the TAS High Passage, Middle Passage, and Low Passage tickets are known and redeemable throughout the Imperium and beyond. Independents like using TAS Travel Offices to handle bookings and having guidelines about service. Major line ticketing is normally handled through the lines own offices. TAS tickets are so common that it is common for a Merc's Repatriation Bond to include a couple of tickets (normally Low Passage). TAS has travel offices on most worlds Port Class A-D Pop 6+.
- Accommodations: TAS maintains hostels and facilities at nearly all class A and B starports in Charted Space. These facilities are normally co-located with commercial facilities. Hostels may be a wing or floor of a commercial hostel or adjacent connected by service passageways. Restaurants and bars again may be adjacent or a private room of commercial establishments. These co-locations allow expense sharing and overflow control. Co-location allows privacy for members and public areas for meeting with non-members. Co-located commercial establishments may be wholly owned or partially owned by TAS Holdings, or even contracted facilities.
- Financial Services: TAS Bank is an interstellar bank and financial services company providing banking, debit card, credit card, loans, investment advice, and currency exchange to individuals. Intent on helping the interstellar traveler with financial needs, TAS stays up to date with the latest crypto-currency, anti-theft, and anti-fraud technology and providing automated kiosks at most space ports and full service banking at larger ports.
- Concierge: The TAS Concierge service is the best in the Imperium. Need tickets to a concert, play, or sporting event, they are the best chance to find them. Need legal advice, no questions medical help again the Concierge can help.
Travel Advisory Service:
Started as a bulletin board at starports that notified travelers of conditions at neighboring worlds, cities, and establishments. The travel advisory service is now in several forms; Planetary travel warnings, bulletin boards, TAS News Service, and hotel and liner service approval ratings.
- Advisory Service:The Planetary travel advisories include the well posted Red Zones and Amber Zones for system interdiction and also the lessor known local warnings which advise on cities, regions, or even worlds which could cover any hazard to travelers.
- Bulletin Boards: Electronic boards are located at all TAS facilities and are free to members and nominal cost to non-members. These can carry any information of interest to travelers: jobs, missions, cargos, news, patrons, gossip and even a news archive that could double as an encyclopedia.
- Ratings Service: TAS has a staff of official inspectors that review and rate accommodations and services related to travel; such as traders and liners, hotels and hostels, restaurants and bars, and tourist destinations. Along with member reviews, these can make or break a service, as members have free access to these reviews and non-members can get them for a nominal fee. Member reviews to be logged require that a member to be in good standing and used their TAS Membership ID while making a purchase at the establishment. Also services can post their ratings in hopes of bringing in more business.
- News: TAS News Service has become the best known and most trusted news service in the Imperium. Starting as a travel warning system it has expanded to have journalists throughout the Imperium. Its roots still show as it still has a bias towards news geared for the interstellar traveler. This helps throughout the Imperium as it does not take sides on local matters and can be a good balance to local biases.
Travellers Entertainment:
- Publishing: The publishing business started with Ve Nu Last’s “Crowded Space” guides and quickly expanded. Soon other travelogs, guide books, video and holo guides were followed by travel documentaries and adventure shows. Entertainment packages are heavily documentary, travelogs, and recorded live performances (concerts and plays). Now it includes a large number of books, shows, vids, holos, and channels.
- Service Packages: Entertainment content is packaged and are syndicated to planets and ships across the Imperium.
TAS Investment:
In addition to these businesses, TAS Holdings, invests in things they know, shipping lines, passenger lines, hotels, bars, restaurants, entertainment, and travel destinations. They also own or co-own service academies (hotel and restaurant management colleges, steward schools, etc), advisory businesses to aid service businesses expand and build customer loyalty and customer base.
References & Contributors / Sources
- Classic Traveller Book 1 Characters and Combat
- EXTERNAL LINK: The Traveller’s Aid Society: Character Generation for Classic Traveller [1]
- Author & Contributor: Master Scout CR Hensley CRHensley