Press Releases: Mark Warner Success Story

Mark Warner customers can now book all elements of their holiday in just a few minutes thanks to BlueSky itour™, a Web-enabled reservations system built by BlueSky Travel Systems on Oracle® Technology, integrated with Oracle e-Business Suite applications. Mark Warner, who received the title of ‘Best Ski Company’ at the Telegraph Travel Awards 2003, specialises in ‘summer sun’ or ‘winter snow’ packages, personalised to each customer’s requirements. Clients can specify travel preferences, make childcare arrangements and reserve sporting activities and excursions at the time of booking. 80% of bookings are made directly through Mark Warner’s call centre, with the remaining 20% coming from high street travel agents.

Replacing existing legacy system
BlueSky itour replaced Mark Warner’s existing legacy reservation system, which was designed in the 1980s and is still used by many tour operators and travel agents today. In spite of upgrades to their existing reservation system, performance was decreasing and maintenance costs were increasing. The system was unable to handle all the different aspects of Mark Warner holidays efficiently and did not give the company the flexibility to respond proactively to changing customer trends.

"Booking a holiday package comprising several different elements was a cumbersome process that could take up to 25 minutes," said Jo Powell, associate director, head of sales and operations at Mark Warner. "The system was not Internet-enabled, so availability could not be checked in real time. It could take up to 24 hours for us confirm a reservation back to the customer. In addition we could not integrate with our back-office systems, which made reconciling figures and running ad-hoc queries on bookings data a time consuming manual task. Migrating to a modern, integrated, scalable solution also let us run our business according to market demand, rather than being restricted by the limitations of our reservations system."

Introducing multiple channels to market
Mark Warner also wanted to introduce multiple channels to market, increase sales force productivity, boost customer loyalty and diversify its product offering. Adapting their existing reservation system to meet the increasingly discerning needs of the travel industry in the 21st Century was neither feasible nor economic and so Mark Warner chose BlueSky itour to replace their existing system in order to meet an ambitious set of project goals.

• Grow revenue from £40 to £100 million in 5 years
• Speed up reservations and improve customer service
• Improve sales force productivity and grow margins
• Introduce online bookings and cut administration
• Adapt offerings quickly to meet fluctuations in demand
• Access meaningful management information
• Add new functionality as required

Why BlueSky?
Mark Warner short listed several systems; but rejected them in favour of the scalability and advanced functionality of BlueSky itour together with a clear upgrade path, which would ensure a future-proofed solution. "BlueSky is the clear technological leader and its directors have a solid track record in the travel industry," said Powell. "itour is already several steps ahead of competitor solutions and gives us a next-generation solution which will help us increase our market leadership."

"itour’s flexible, integrated solution addresses the modern-day needs  of tour operators and travel agents and lets us build our business around the customer." David Hopkins - Managing Director