Background
Shearings is one of the UK's leading travel companies. Created as a result of the merger between Shearings Holidays and Wallace Arnold in March 2005, Shearings provides cruise, coach, air and hotel trips around the world. The group has a chain of 40 hotels and 12 high street outlets offering a variety of holiday and travel related services.
The Challenge
Following the merger of Wallace Arnold and Shearings Holidays in March 2005, the newly formed company was scheduled to launch its new name and corporate image, alongside its first joint holiday brochure, in September that year.
Both Wallace Arnold and Shearings Holidays had their own websites, but they were slow with inconsistent layouts and poor navigation. A new common website was required to reflect the merged company and enable users to search for holidays from its first joint brochure.
Shearings had already employed a web designer to ensure the website reflected the image of the new company, but it also needed technology to link the company’s brochure content with the website enabling users to search availability online.
With limited time to get the new website up and running before the scheduled launch in September, the company could not afford to undertake a lengthy tendering process. Shearings’ IT Director, Veronica Hargreaves, explains; “We were already working with a company who recommended Modcomp as a suitable technology partner to get the new brochure content onto the website. We took up references and were satisfied that Modcomp’s considerable experience working with other major travel operators would make them an ideal technology partner for us.”
The Solution
Modcomp were appointed in July, giving them just six weeks to complete the project in time for the launch. In order to achieve this, Modcomp created a temporary database to link the company’s reservation data with the website. Data from Shearings’ reservation database could then be extracted on a daily basis and imported to the installed SQL Server database online, enabling users to check availability for holidays from the new 2006 joint brochure in as near to real time as possible within the timeframe available. A second content database was developed to provide a source for further information on each holiday or destination, which could be accessed as users searched availability.
In addition, Modcomp developed a secure admin facility within the website, enabling Shearings’ staff to directly upload and update content on the site, including news, special offers and promotional panels. It also allowed staff to manage and revise the information stored within the content database to ensure destination and holiday details could be kept up to date.
Conclusion
By September the new website was ready to be launched alongside the new company image and joint brochure. Unlike the newly merged company’s previous separate websites, Shearings’ new site was faster, smarter and had a consistent design throughout.
Modcomp’s technology linked the website with the new company brochure enabling users to search for 2006 holidays and get more information on each destination directly from the site. A communication link between the site and the reservation centre allows users to make a provisional booking online or request a call back from the reservations team.
According to Veronica Hargreaves the new site completely met her requirements: “We had a very limited timeframe to work with, but Modcomp got the job done and the resulting website did everything we wanted it to do. Modcomp were a dream to work with - they were very approachable and had a good understanding of the tour sector.
“We’re now looking to expand on this work and create a brochure content management system which can link directly with the website and give us a single point for managing data for the brochure and the website. We’re also looking to develop a real time interface with our reservation centre to enable online bookings. We have an ongoing maintenance contract with Modcomp and anticipate that we will carry on working with them as we continue to build on and improve our web presence.”
About Modcomp
Modcomp is a Microsoft Gold Certified software development company with over 25 year’s experience of building software solutions. It was one of the first systems integrators to help holiday companies take advantage of the web and has worked with First Choice Citalia, Hoseasons, Inghams, Kuoni VJV and GforGo.com amongst others.
The travel industry relies heavily on technology. But many travel companies have back-office systems which were developed over 10 years or more ago. While continuing to do the job, such systems restrict the drive to modernise and develop new channels to market, such as the internet. Modcomp provides the technology to rapidly build online booking solutions which are fully integrated with a company’s existing back-office systems.