TAS Holdings

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TAS Holdings is a corporation operating across most of Imperial Space and beyond.

  • It primarily operates within Charted Space.
  • 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) corporation 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.

Library Data Referral Tree[edit]

Please refer to the following AAB Library Data for more information:
Spacecraft Facilities:

Market Ticker Code[edit]

This business entity is not traded on the interstellar market.

Description (Portfolio)[edit]

TAS Holdings: The first 3 businesses TAS invested in were travel agencies, travel advisory service, and book publishing. As TAS Holdings are wholly owned by the Travellers' Aid Society, TAS Holdings and TAS are used interchangeably in this article.

Commercial Competencies[edit]

Travel and ticket sales, Hostels (private and public), Financial services (travel and independent merchant), Rating Services, News Service.

Governance & Organization[edit]

Wholly owned subsidiary of [TAS]

  • This is the Investment branch of the Traveller's Aid Society with the goal of insuring membership fees continue to provide the services and benefits desired by members.

Stockholders[edit]

Stock ownership: 1105

  • Wholly owned subsidiary of [TAS]
  • Profits from TAS Holdings are put towards TAS Member benefits and services.

Subsidiaries[edit]

  • TAS 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.
  • TAS Advisory Service:
    • 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: Traveller 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.
  • TAS Entertainment Services:
    • 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. They also acquire distribution rights to locally produced publications.
    • Service Packages: Entertainment content, News, and News Archives are packaged and 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.

Best Known Products & Services[edit]

This business is best known for:

  • TAS News Service
  • TAS World Travel Ratings
  • TAS Business Travel Ratings

History & Background (Dossier)[edit]

TAS Holdings has long been part of Imperial Space and beyond.

Trade Partners[edit]

Trader's Guild, Independent merchants, Hotels, Hostels, Restaurants, and Bars throughout known space.

  • The partnership with the Trader's Guild is probably the most important business relationship of TAS Holdings. Together they codified the three standard passage requirements and prices, stabilizing the economic structure of independent merchants. TAS ticket kiosks automatically handle Trader's Guild bookings, saving captains and passengers time and effort. No need for haggling or cut throat competition helps the independents to compete with larger companies. The rating service and feedback provide competitive intel. TAS influence with local establishments results in discounts to Trader's Guild members (not as good as to TAS members, but it helps). Trader's Guild members get TAS Entertainment subscriptions at a discount, nearly ensuring all independent merchants show TAS news and travelogs.

Trade Competitors[edit]

There are few direct competitors for TAS Holdings as they believe that open and free commerce and travel are good for all. But there are a few areas that TAS Holdings appear to have competition.

  • Travel services: TAS is mainly concerned with assisting independent merchants and small lines, where they compete with larger lines is the concern of the merchant. TAS has no restriction on larger lines accepting or redeeming TAS passage tickets. TAS rating services are independent and unbiased, it is a service for members not the establishments.
  • News and entertainment services: Makhidkarun and Delgado Trading appear to be direct competitors, each are specialized and often end up on the same planetary entertainment systems. TAS tends to be travel and interstellar news and history related, while the other two specialize in fiction and pure entertainment. No large company competes with TAS on travel guides and even small publishers may get distribution deals from TAS Publishing on well written guides.
  • Finance: TAS Holdings works on smaller scales than Hortalez et Cie and Zirunkariish. Where the largest finance project TAS might work on is a subsidized liner or new hotel, that is the normal low end for the two MegaCorporations. TAS Holdings likes to keep financial services to those needed by travelers, personal banking small loans, and often helping small worlds and the Trader's Guild with ship loans.

Corporate Timeline[edit]

As a wholly owned subsidiary of the Travellers' Aid Society, the formal creation is unknown but appears to have started with Ve Nu Lant's publishing. The Travellers' Aid Society was formed by Ve Nu Lant. During the expansion of the Sylean Federation, individuals informally entered their experiences, tips, places to go and eat and avoid, and advice into a local networks. Ve Nu Lant collected these into guides called Crowded Space. After their success, he and a few others set up the Society. At first consisting of 'net lectures along with the planet safety coding system. By -16, the first planetary office was established. It helped people get oriented, provided a place to meet and exchange information along with some sleeping accommodations.

After formal establishment of the Society, setting fee structure, and benefits, management of the fee money became important and more than society leaders could manage. Professional management was hired and investment in businesses that could provide discounts to members was prioritized. Also professionalizing of travel and establishment rating guides and travel news dissemination. Open cooperation with the Trader's Guild produced standardized requirements and rates for Low, Medium, and High Passage and resulted in universal acceptance of TAS passage tickets and establishment of TAS travel kiosks at nearly every starport in known space. By establishing TAS tickets as universal, the free tickets given members became spendable everywhere, and pre-purchase of tickets gave the society investment money.

Investment in hotels, hostels, restaurants, bars, merchants (independent and small lines), and travel destinations provide the society with a steady income and discounts for members. Businesses with whom TAS has invested in receive advance notice of upcoming reviews and guidance on improving service. Good TAS reviews often published in advertising, thus bringing in more customers.

TAS 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.

Worlds & Sectors (Astrography)[edit]

TAS Holdings has a presence in nearly every system within the Imperium and on many worlds surrounding. Be that unmanned ticket kiosk in every starport to bulletin boards at most Class D starport and above to the pervasive TAS News Service to hotels/hostels on every Class A & B starport. In most places their presence is small but noticeable.

References & Contributors (Sources)[edit]

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Far Future Enterprises or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.
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