Travel organisation Thomas Cook Netherlands is the first agency in The Netherlands to make detailed information, previously only available in the Travel Shops, available online. Now, specific target groups, such as families, youth and singles, can obtain more detailed information on their destination. Does the hotel have wheelchair access? Is the swimming pool suitable for children? Which languages do the receptionists speak? This makes choosing a holiday easier. HintTech helped develop a toolbox and web services to make this possible.
Almost half of the travel bookings in The Netherlands are made via Internet. A large increase, if you consider that in 1999 only one percent of the trips were booked on the Internet. In a market where the competition is getting hotter, Internet is a growing business for online travel agencies.
Thomas Cook Netherlands (with the labels Neckermann, Vrij Uit and Thomas Cook) has not ignored the enormous increase in online bookings. The company knows that it has to differentiate itself from its competitors and it has a trump card: detailed information on almost all destinations. The website not only provides a wealth of general information, it also provides detailed information specifically for target groups. “For example, families with children want to know if the sea bed slopes down gradually and that the sea therefore isn’t too deep for the kids”, explained Ronald Wezeman, project manager at Thomas Cook Netherlands.
“We analyse which search terms the consumers use on our sites. What do they want to know? And which information is important to which target group? With this knowledge, we can construct profiles for the target groups. This way, the consumer doesn’t have to search thousands of characteristics. The desired information is presented in a tailor made package to the consumer”, said Wezeman.
The company has already spent five years collecting as many attributes of countries, ski and other recreation areas, cities and accommodations as possible. At the moment, attributes of 20,000 accommodations have been registered. Every destination has about 1600 attributes. Every month, several destinations are visited and analysed by twenty employees. HintTech was called on board to make this database available via the websites. The ICT service provider created a web service and a toolbox for Thomas Cook Netherlands. The toolbox has been implemented for the Neckermann and the Vrij Uit websites. In the future, it will also be used for the other brands and for other websites.
Since 1997, HintTech has been developing internet and intranet applications for various platforms. Despite the competition for the tender, HintTech was a clear winner. Wezeman: “We trusted their people because they had previously successfully executed a project for us. They were therefore already familiar with the Thomas Cook Netherlands domain. Additionally, their proposed technical solution was good, and the price and quality were right”.
During the project it was apparent that HintTech is flexible. Wezeman: “HintTech is a company that can quickly accommodate change. Originally, we had chosen .Net as development platform, but our mother company in Germany preferred Java. The toolbox can then be used in different countries. We were already in discussion with HintTech. They had even put together a development team. The switch to Java was no problem, however. Within a few days, they’d assembled a Java team, among which, a number of senior Java developers with extensive experience and expertise.”
The project’s success is owed to the ease of communication. Every week, a status meeting was held, via video conferencing, where the results and the problems were discussed. “The resulting issues were quickly solved, which enabled us to make progress. HintTech absolutely hit all of the deadlines. We had short lines of communication which meant we could act quickly”, observed Wezeman.
HintTech delivered the following results:
Thomas Cook AG is one of the largest travel organisations in the world. The brands Neckermann, Vrij Uit and Thomas Cook belong to the Dutch organisation. In total, Thomas Cook Netherlands has 1000 employees, of which 500 work in the 170 Travel Shops across the country. Every year, 1.3 million Dutch people choose to let Thomas Cook Netherlands take care of their holiday. For more information, go to www.thomascook.info.
