Case Studies


Grape Escapes
Formed in 2004 by Mark and Claire Hallett, Grape Escapes are a specialist wine tour operator offering a broad selection of holidays and trips in the vineyard regions of France. From their ‘traditional’ Champagne weekends and Burgundy tours to a bespoke self-drive circuit or a birthday weekend, they create the perfect trip, whether for individuals, groups or companies.
With Grape Escapes, you have the flexibility to arrange your perfect holiday.

Grape Escape tours include:
  • Travel to and from France.
  • Accommodation in your choice of hand picked hotels to suit every budget from cozy Bed & Breakfasts to the top four star hotels.
  • Selected restaurants featuring the finest regional cuisine.
  • The best vineyard tours and tastings.

Grape Escapes offer a range of tours to suit your needs including:

Corporate Hospitality – including conferences, team building & product launches. At Grape Escapes they believe that attention to detail is essential and their team will be on hand to ensure that your stay exceeds expectations. When holding corporate trips, they will usually send a member of the Grape Escapes team to discreetly manage the tour and liaise with the hosts to ensure that every last detail is perfect. From recommending classic chateau hotels and interesting venues for gala dinners to advising you of appropriate gifts to remind guests of their trip, they would be delighted to help you plan your next event.

Social Groups – they have organised birthday parties, hen weekends and trips for many other groups. From wine tasting groups to rotary clubs, from sports and social clubs to wedding celebrations, they can create a bespoke programme to suit your requirements. Anything from a weekend in champagne, to a week in the vineyards of central France, they have the contacts to ensure that the whole of your group have an enjoyable break.


Escorted Group Tours – The key difference between Grape Escapes and other wine tour companies is that they have designed their tours to be completely flexible so that the customer can decide how many days to stay for, which of the selected hotels they would like to stay in and choose a daily itinerary. Grape Escapes offer a variety of transport options to give you complete flexibility to create your perfect vacation. However, to allow you to fully enjoy the wines and food of the region, they also organise a range of optional tours and meals. These include transport from and back to your hotel where required.

Independent Trips - In addition to the group trips and tours that we organise, we assist individual travelers to plan independent trips. We will discuss your requirements with you and then arrange everything including booking your hotel and travel, sending you maps, plans, restaurant and vineyard recommendations and an itinerary so that your visit goes smoothly.

Champagne Escapes - With flexible trips, personal service and a passion for customer delight Grape Escapes offer a range of Champagne Breaks for individuals, groups and companies. On their web site you will find details of all the standard Champagne weekends for individuals.


News:
Due to the overwhelming popularity of our tours in Champagne, we have now increased the number and type of tours offered. In 2008, there will be at least one Champagne tour every weekend from April to October. As well as the ever popular prestige and adventure tours we have expanded our range to include a classic tour which includes a vineyard lunch, a valentines tour, a deluxe tour and a harvest tour.

We are also pleased to be running a very special trip in October 2008 to The Loire for the Confrerie du Sabre d’Or, as well as other trips to Bordeaux, Burgundy and The Loire.


Mark comments; "Although a relatively new company, we have grown dramatically in the last three years to become the Number One Wine Tour operator to the Champagne region. As such, our home grown spreadsheets and mail merge Word documentation are not the best way to run the company. We thus decided to invest in a fully integrated computer system for the business to aid in our next expansion phase."

"Being a relatively small, family run company, we needed a system that we could integrate in a matter of weeks rather than months, with minimum disruption to our day to day operations, as we were running at full capacity (and then some!). We researched the market, narrowed our potential choice to a few suppliers, contacted each for a demonstration and decided that Tourplan offered the best solution and definitely the best value for money. In three months we have chosen and ordered the system, been to Tourplan’s offices for training, implemented the system, set it up and gone live. That’s pretty impressive going considering the fact that most of our tours our tailor made and not off-the-shelf, so the set up became quite complicated. Add in the fact that our itineraries, vouchers, correspondence and other documentation need to be in French and English, all automatically produced and sent to customers and suppliers at the touch of a button, and we now have one amazing system. Hats off to the Tourplan team who were always at the end of the phone ready to help out and ensure everything went smoothly for us."

"The biggest benefits to us are the efficiencies it has afforded us in terms of booking tours and issuing travel packs etc. Everything is on one system so we can see at a glance where any customer is at in the sales and booking process. The full automation of our business processes is great. And lastly, all of our costings and quotations are far more accurate and easier to manage. What more could we ask for?"


You can contact Grape Escapes at:
Grape Escapes Ltd
The Manor House
High Street, Buntingford
Hertfordshire SG9 9AB

Tel: 08456 430 860
or from outside UK +44 8456 430 860
Fax: 01763 273 994
Email: info@grapeescapes.net
Web: www.grapeescapes.net or www.champagneescapes.com








ARA Tours
Formed in 1992 by Daniel Küng (President) & Roland Ayer (General Manager), ARA Tours is now one of the leading Costa Rica inbound tour operators. They provide a personal service and their highly motivated team has excellent local knowledge, wide travel experience and communicates fluently in German, English, French and Spanish. Numerous, famous European tour operators entrust their sophisticated clients to ARA Tours.

Daniel Küng
 Roland Ayer

The strong point of ARA Tours is organization and excellent management of tailor made individual tours in small groups of up to 20 persons. You will discover the natural paradise Costa Rica more efficiently than in big international groups. ARA Tours sets a high value on sustainable tourism. Regardless, if you would like to go on an adventure tour, make an active vacation, rainforest trekking, special interest trips, beach holiday or even a cross national tour.

Flexivouchers are another product of ARA Tours designed for people who want to travel independently. FlexiVOUCHERS are open vouchers to be used for payment at over 130 hotels all over Costa Rica. When you take the decision to travel with FlexiVOUCHER, we will provide you with your personal access code to our web sites, where you will find many useful tips and information. That makes it easy to plan your very personal itinerary in advance. You can also access the site at any of the numerous internet-cafés all over the country to prepare your next step. After your arrival, you will also receive our road map and our manual, which includes a description of each region and a list of all hotels participating with the FlexiVOUCHER system. During your trip, you can always contact the team of ARA Tours with any question – www.flexivoucher-costarica.com.

Latincoming - ARA Tours is also a part of the Latincoming company, which is the result of an alliance from another 6 reliable Tourism agencies located across Central America, México and Cuba. Each partner is responsibly for its own quality, flexibility and reliability. The intention of Latincoming is to promote the region as a tourist area, to operate multi-destination roundtrips and to combine different packages – www.latincoming.com.
In 2007, ARA Tours and the Latincoming partners have launched their new brand “Selected Moments* to cover the growing demand for luxury travel in the area. “Under this name, we promote the very best of each country, provide even more personalized service and include surprises and unexpected experiences with our itineraries”, says Daniel Küng, chairman of Latincoming. The product is a selection of outstanding lodges and hotels in Central America, Mexico and Cuba. For more information please visit www.selectedmoments.com.



"The investment in Tourplan was one of the best decisions we have taken in the past years.

After carefully verifying many other options, we were totally convinced to have chosen the best option for our needs. Among the many advantages we want to point out 3 of them:
1. Flexibility - If you work in segments and markets, where 60% of the bookings are coming in different than you offer them in your sales manuals, you must count on a totally flexible software, which helps you to manage the complete process from quotation, reservation, operation, invoicing, accounting through to statistics. And all this must be completely reliable and cost-efficient. Tourplan gives you the flexibility, reliability and quickness our markets demand.
2. Cost-Savings - Depending on how seriously you take the administration of the database, you can save 30-40% labour costs.
3. Statistics – You know where you are at any time. You can instantly extract all the statistics you may need to manage your company. Easy export to Excel tables allow you to view your figures in exactly the way you need them."


ARA Tours provides you with everything
ARA Tours - Swiss quality since 1992!
You can contact ARA Tours at:
Tel: ++506 232 04 00
Fax: ++506 232 03 63
e-mail: info@aratours.cominfo@aratours.com
Web-Page: www.aratours.com








Congratulations to South Africa Winner of the Rugby World Cup 2007
Another great tournament was held in France in November 2007, with passenger movements for a sporting event second only to the Football world cup. South Africa kept a valiant English team under control to take the final 15-6.


Tourplan has traditionally been central to managing these Rugby World Cup events since Gullivers Sports Travel were the official RWC Travel Agent in 1991 and 1995 and more recently several of the key ticket and ground handlers including Mike Burton have used Tourplan to manage inventories and bookings. 2011 in New Zealand will be no different with companies like Williment Travel Group already planning to make extensive use of Tourplan’s “bed bank” and on-line booking functionality. In terms of large event handling, Tourplan is also the cornerstone of the 15-20 Jul 2008 XXIII World Youth Day in Sydney. Up to 500,000 pilgrims, including up to 125,000 international visitors are expected. It will also mark the first visit to Australia by Pope Benedict XVI. Tourplan client Harvest Youth Tours is the official Australian WYD08 Tour Operator.

Ross Jamieson, director of Williment Travel Group in New Zealand comments
“We took almost 3,000 New Zealand rugby fans to the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France. Without a doubt the touring and activities were the highlights. We started by taking over a whole French village in the south of France for a day to immerse our clients in French culture. We then took them on a 7 day cruising holiday on the canals and ended up with an exclusive concert by the legendary NZ musician Dave Dobyn.”
Details of all Williment’s sports tours and more can be found at www.williment.co.nz.

Tourplan Visits Paris
Tourplan CEO Peter Trumic led a group of rugby stalwarts to Paris including Craig Gray, John Snelling and Geoff Beaver. Peter’s team was well looked after by Mike Burton Sports travel throughout the three day adventure. Spearheaded by one genuine and two token South African’s, several hundred English Rugby Club supporters made for a genuinely supportive environment for the Kiwi’s lamenting the All Blacks poor showing at this year’s cup. Peter said “The French were amazing hosts, and the English supporters were fantastic fun - they know how to have a great time regardless of the result”.


For rugby fans the IRB (International Rugby Board) has published an excellent and very detailed Statistical Review and Match Analysis for 2007 Rugby World Cup. Below are a few excerpts from the 96 pages:
“Rugby World Cup proved once again that winning a world cup is quite a different proposition from winning a championship. When a tournament has a knock-out stage, then the dynamics suddenly change – and, in RWC 2007, some of the changes were remarkable.”

Why did South Africa win?
“In one area however, there was no surprise. South Africa, the winning team, produced the sort of rugby throughout the tournament that was consistent with its approach in the period leading up to it. Their game was based on a strong set piece, an aggressive defence and an ability to turn transgressions into points. In RWC 2007, it proved highly successful.Their own lineout was as successful as any, they managed more lineout steals than any other team, and had an effective scrum. Securing possession was not seen as the ultimate objective – pressure was the priority - and their kick at goal rate was at the satisfactory 75% mark.”


Why did France & New Zealand not make it to the final?
“This formula disappeared however in their RWC quarter final match against France. Instead of creating 43 rucks, New Zealand created 165 or almost 4 times as many. This was around 100 more than a normal New Zealand game; was around 50% higher than the next highest in the tournament and is almost certainly the highest figure ever seen in an international match. It was at a scale that New Zealand had never remotely experienced before with an often seen expansive approach being replaced by forward attrition. The successful formula of recent years had been abandoned for some reason and New Zealand found themselves out of the competition."


"The same could also be said however of their conquerors in that game – France. When they beat England, their semi final opponent by 22 points to 9, only a month or so before the tournament started, they kicked the ball just 19 times. In the RWC semi final however, against the same opponents, they kicked the ball 46 times and lost. Again, the perceived safety of kicking into the opponents half outweighed a possible alternative strategy that could have resulted in a different outcome. It was not just New Zealand and France however that reacted in such a way at the thought of sudden death. Other teams also saw safety and comfort in kicking at a hugely accelerated rate. While all internationals produce around 55 kicks per game, this figure was dwarfed at the knock out stages of RWC 2007. The final produced 91kicks and the semi finals 86 and 85.”

What did the “second and third tier” teams contribute?"
“The fact was that no other RWC produced so many closely fought matches between Tier 1 and Tier 2 countries. Georgia came close to beating Ireland, Tonga almost beat South Africa with the last move of the game, Romania were just edged out by Italy while Fiji beat Wales and found themselves in the quarter finals and within clutching distance of a semi final. What happened in RWC was that Tier 2 and Tier 3 countries played for 80 minutes. In the past, less experienced teams could sometimes hold their own for the first hour or so before being overwhelmed in the last quarter. This did not happen in RWC 2007 which reflected the positive impact of the IRB Strategic Initiative Funding and the Specific IRB pre-RWC Funding that was directly targeted at improving the performance of Tier 2 and Tier 3 countries.”

Roll on the 20011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand!







Enjoy Slovakia
ENJOY SLOVAKIA s.r.o. was established in 2003 by people who have a wealth of experience and knowledge in both tourism and international marketing. The company was created in response to the demands for quality incoming tourism and Slovakia joining the EU in 2004. Enjoy Slovakia provides visitors with a high quality product and outstanding value for money including quality hotels in Bratislava and the Slovak mountains, reliable transportation, restaurants chosen for their culinary excellence and experienced guides fluent in German and English.

Enjoy Slovakia has offices in Pezinok, which is a charming wine-growing historical town near Bratislava, the Slovak capitol.
ENJOY SLOVAKIA s.r.o.
Kollarova16, 902 01 Pezinok
tel.: +421 33 6409026
fax: +421 33 6409029
e-mail: info@enjoyslovakia.com

Marek Farkas
Marek Farkas is the Managing Director of Enjoy Slovakia.
Mr. Farkas has 15 years experience in the business and
before founding this highly efficient Destination
Management Company, he developed and managed
several successful brands in E-commerce.

SlovakiaTravel.com is the trading name of one of Slovakia’s largest Incoming Tour Operators – ENJOY SLOVAKIA, which has been providing travel services since 2003. They offer a selection of quality hotels in every part of Slovakia. To date they have made bookings for over 10,000 clients.
"In addition to booking hotels we also book cars, group tours, suggest itineraries and help you plan the perfect holiday or vacation in Slovakia. All enquiries, are dealt with by real people, people based in Slovakia who can add an extra dimension to the booking process by suggesting alternatives, like little hidden gem’s that no one else knows about. We are the experts; we have been booking hotels for years and know how to get you the maximum value and enjoyment out of your trip to Slovakia. With such a strong and lengthy track record you can feel safe booking with SlovakiaTravel.com – go on try us!

Incentives - Enjoy Slovakia has a dedicated Incentive division that operates specifically in the Incentive, Conference and Events industry. This division operates mainly in the superior quality hotel sector and has an international client base through its Incentive House partners worldwide, which in the past year has included end users like Bank Austria Creditanstalt, Lloyds Bank, Spar Nord Bank, Cetelem and many others. We also see growing demand for meetings and incentive groups in Bratislava. Since most of Bratislava hotels upgraded their services, they offer quality services aimed for upscale market. Therefore, we see that the major wave of stag-night travel to Bratislava is over, and we see increase MICE travel to Slovakia. With excellent travel connection and nearby Vienna, Bratislava is an upcoming incentive tourism hub in Central Europe.

Mr. Marek Farkas comments:
“When we established Enjoy Slovakia, our goal was to build a modern, creative and flexible Slovak Destination Management Company that would provide top quality travel services in Slovakia. We looked for an hotel reservation software that would be an integral and reliable tool, making our work easier so that we can dedicate more time to our customers, to pay attention to arranging details of our products and spare energy for creativity and further development.
Tourplan has proven to be the right choice for us. This software responds to our needs, especially saving our time and human resources. From using Tourplan, it is obvious that it was designed by people, who understand the needs of incoming tourism.
We were one of the first Slovak tour operators to offer our clients a comprehensive Internet booking system including up-to-date pricing and availability. The basis off this booking system is Tourplan’s hostConnect Internet Booking Engine.”

SlovakiaTravel.Com
“We also offer an online hotel booking solution to the public through a B2C web site SlovakiaTravel.Com, where our customers find a broad selection of hotels in Bratislava and Slovakia.”

“With expanding flight connections to Poprad Airport in the Tatras, we have launched our Tatra-Break product, short but intensive stay in the Tatra Mountains. Customers book their flight online and then look for Tatra hotel deals at slovakiatravel.com.”

Holidays and services offered by Enjoy Slovakia
and
www.slovakiatravel.com







Irish Welcome Tours
Irish Welcome Tours (IWT) is one of Ireland’s leading Destination Management Companies. It has been successfully operating since 1989 and has earned a very high reputation in the Irish Tourist Industry. IWT includes some of the world’s leading Tour companies among its clients.

John Waldron
John Waldron is the Managing Director of
Irish Welcome Tours. He is a founder member
of the Group, which was formed in 1989.
Formerly the Managing Director of Best
Western Hotels Ireland, he is also Managing
Director of Premier Guesthouses and Irish
Cottage Holiday Homes. John is 20 years in
the business.

Irish Welcome Tours operates from a modern office in Dublin and employs a total of 30 dedicated and multilingual staff.

IWT offers a full range of incoming services to Ireland, from FIT programs, Group Tours and City Breaks to Incentives and Conferences. Target markets are Tour Operators, Travel Agents and, Incentive and Conference Houses on a global scale. IWT is extremely service oriented and in relation to general tourism services it aims for a 24 hour response. Our clients include companies such as Der Tours, Falcon Travel, Dyno Nobel and Irish Ferries.


Irish Welcome Incentives (I.W.I.) is the dedicated Incentive division of IWT and operates specifically in the Incentive, Conference and Events industry. Headed up by Marketing Director, Tim McStay, IWI operates mainly in the 4 and 5 star sector and has an international client base through its Incentive House partners worldwide, which in the past year has included end users like Pfizer, Saab, and Glaxo Smith Kline.

Mr. John Waldron comments:
"Right from day one we made full use of the best technology. We have successfully used the Tourplan package for over 10 years to process all group and FIT quotations and bookings. The integrated Tourplan accounting modules are also fully utilized and provide us with a wide range of daily, weekly and monthly management reporting for all departments.

We were also one of the first Irish tour operators to offer our clients a comprehensive Internet booking system including up-to-date pricing and availability. The basis of this booking system is Tourplan’s hostConnect Internet Booking Engine.

We also offer an online booking solution to the public through a B2C web site at www.hotelsireland.com



In addition we allow agents to update their own system by an XML interface so they can up load real time allocations and prices. Tourplan allows us to load many different prices for each Hotel which allows us to offer agent specific prices for the same Hotel.

Irish Welcome could not handle the volume of business we currently have without Tourplan. It is encouraging to see that Tourplan are also investing heavily in internet based solutions where we both see the future of the business.

In IWT we are pleased to work with Tourplan who are a professional company who develop good software solutions, have a good understanding of the travel business and who uncommonly in this business have a very good help desk."

Holidays and services offered by Irish Welcome Tours
and
www.hotelsireland.com







African Rainbow Tours
Background

Over the past few years ART (African Rainbow Tours) have positioned themselves as the Southern African market leaders in the provision of on-line technology travel services including accommodation, car hire, tours, transfers and activities.

Travel agents, tour operators, wholesalers, corporations, governments, airlines, and other related organisations now have a choice of over 1600 quality approved tourism suppliers to choose from in Southern Africa – safari, adventure, scenic & cultural are just a few of the many fine selections.

Michael Schuit
Marketing Director & Co-Founder
Born, 12th of August 1966, Australia
Qualifications – Marketing, Graphic Design and Computer Graphics
Having lived in South Africa for the last 34 years, Mike has developed a passion for the Southern Africa region. After growing South Africa’s largest independent appliance retail store by 300% in 3 years, it was time for a new challenge. ART was born.
Ken Lambert
Director: Finance & Information Technology & Co-Founder
Born, 17 January 1962, South Africa
Qualifications – Bachelor of Accounting Science
After studying to become an Accountant, Ken joined a large retail organisation as a financial manager, where he soon became involved in the design and development of the information systems. Having an excellent understanding of the Southern Africa region and being widely travelled he joined Mike as a partner in 1998. Together they developed and created African Rainbow Tours.

Objectives
  • To establish an in-house database system to house our huge tariff of services, prices and availability.
  • Implement an efficient computerised reservations, operations and accounting system.
  • Provide our International travel partners with superb Internet web sites including quality product, up-to-the minute pricing and availability and easy to use on-line booking engines.
  • Integrate all the above systems to avoid double handling of bookings and maintenance of multiple databases.
Solution

As a new company, without the restrictions of legacy systems and with clear objectives in mind ART were able to extend their systems search Internationally.

Mike Schuit comments:

"Tourplan was selected because first they had a proven inbound reservation system – Tourplan V5. However more importantly to us they also had a range of fully integrated on-line Internet booking systems called iCom. We had a choice of hundreds of Internet Booking Engines but most were off-line systems, they were designed primarily for retail travel (as opposed to the inbound travel industry) and they were not integrated with a back-office reservations and accounting system we could use in-house."

"Tourplan were also able to offer us day-to-day local support through their Johannesburg office and technical backup from their programers in New Zealand."

"We had one very clear aim. The site had to be intuitive, rich with information, fast and easy to use. Over the past 24 months we have been working very closely with our in-house web development team and Tourplan. We encountered some resistance from the web developers at first but after the first 12 months we had created our first web site. This gave us a very sound base on which to work on various techniques over the next twelve months. Thanks to the excellent support from the tourplan iCom team and our very knowledgeable web developers and after numerous user tests the web site has matured to the stage where we are in a position to start rolling out our various affiliate and partner programmes. A fine example of this is www.bookinafrica.com. Our task is ongoing in the development of the site that is attracting a lot of attention at the moment. New features and functionality is planned for the very near future."

"We are willing to offer assistance to existing and new Tourplan users around the world who would like to test the waters of this new rapidly developing and exciting technology.
A global site linking to iCom enabled Tourplan users around the world is one possible solution. The possibilities are endless here because of the flexibility the web has to offer. The site could be a closed B2B site controlled by passwords or an open B2C website offering direct access to consumers around the world. It could even be a combination of the two creating the third dimension the B2B2C. We believe this could be a very cost effective solution for those thinking about but unsure of the road forward as far as web technologies are concerned. Any interested parties are very welcome to contact us in this regard. Any enquiries can be directed to ken@africanrainbow.com or mike@africanrainbow.com."

"Obviously bookings were slow initially but this suited us and enabled us to provide our clients with a personalised service. Volumes have increased steadily and following our recent attendance at WTM in London we are very busy".

"We have now also implemented Tourplan’s fastConnect Internet Booking system for our higher volume agents who require high speed access to our products and instant booking confirmations".

View African Rainbow Tours' website






ATS Pacific
Background

ATS Pacific, which has inbound operations based in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, established its business in the South Pacific region in 1979.
ATS Pacific is a privately owned group of wholesale inbound travel management companies specialising in incentive, independent and group travel.

The shares in these companies are held by working directors who have a hands-on role in the business – thus guaranteeing their commitment to providing the best possible service. Their business has attracted some 200 multi-national employees who bring professionalism, experience and a wealth of knowledge to their role. The highest standards are met by our consultants, tour guides and buyers of accommodation and other services as it's our people who make all the difference.

ATS Pacific have developed strong working relationships with key hotels, resorts, transport operators and attractions. And based on the hundreds of thousands of room nights they purchase annually they have better buying power.
Over the years ATS Pacific has built an enviable reputation and a client list which includes many of the world's leading tour operators.

.ATS Pacific have used Tourplan software for over 10 years in their Auckland, Sydney and Nadi offices to handle all aspects of their tariff, quoting, booking, documentation, accounting and reporting.

Denis Pierce
Manging Director - ATS Pacific - Sydney
Denis has over 30 years experience in the inbound travel industry including 9 years in California with both the New Zealand Tourism Board and Newmans Tours. He is a past chairman of the Inbound Tourism Organisation of Australia(ITOA) and served 7 years on that board. A recipient of the year 2000 Inbound Tourism Award of Excellence in recognition of his outstanding individual contribution to the Australian inbound travel industry. Currently a board member of Tourism New South Wales.
Max Storck
Managing Director - UTC Fiji - Nadi
Born in Fiji - 4th generation and educated in New Zealand. Max has wide industry experience having run Avis Rent A Car in Fiji and then managed the luxury Yasawa Island Resort.
UTC Fiji offers visitors personalised service via a 24 hour meet and greet service at Nadi airport and tour desks at many of Fiji's hotels. Tourists can book additional day tours and activities quickly and simply right from their hotel. The Nadi office also offers incentives including unusual and exotic activities ranging from car rallies to silver service dining atop a mountain complete with helicopter transport to and from the guests' hotel. Shore excursions for cruise ships is another speciality and UTC Fiji handle all Fiji operations for both Cunard and P&O Cruise liners.
Tourism is booming in Fiji and Conde Neste magazine recently voted Fijians the most friendly people in the world.
Stuart Neels
General Manager Europe and North America
Stuart has over 25 years ' experience in the travel industry. Initially living and working in UK and South Africa, he commenced working in the New Zealand inbound industry in 1984 working with Newmans Tours for 4 years and then Great Sights for 6 years as General Manager. He then worked in Fiji and Auckland for the Helicopter Line prior to joining ATS Pacific New Zealand in 1999. Stuart has been a Tourism Auckland board member and is currently a board member of ITOC (Inbound Tour Operators Council of New Zealand).
ATS Pacific New Zealand has a wide range of self drive products, which are being made available on iCom, including Hotel, Unique and Boutique and Lodge accommodation. The transport options include Car, 4 Wheel Drive and Motor Cycle.

Objectives
  • To offer our established agent base around world the convenience of 24 hour/ 7 days a week pricing, availability and booking facilities with instant confirmations via the Internet.
  • Increase in-house productivity by linking this new Internet Booking system on-line to our in-house Tourplan systems to avoid double handling bookings.
Solution

As a long time user of Tourplan software ATS Pacific participated in Tourplan's very first Internet Booking system called TIBS. This was an off-line booking system with a separate database generating email notifications of new bookings and amendments.

When the new fully on-line iCom was released ATS Pacific were quick to recognise the benefits for their clients and their own offices.

Max Storck (Managing Director) for UTC Fiji comments:

"We are 12 hours ahead of Europe and 3 hours ahead of Japan. Therefore the greatest advantage iCom fastConnect offers our clients is same day booking confirmations".

Stuart Neels (Sales Manager) for ATS Pacific Auckland comments:

"The iCom system has provided an efficient option to our traditional booking communication with wholesale clients. In a time when the consumer requires fast and convenient service, iCom provides instant prices and confirmations for a wide range of products. iCom is especially useful for last-minute hotel only bookings.
We launched this new service in late 2001 and all agents to whom we showed fastConnect said it was simple and intuitive to use. In fact we have not needed to provide any training to these agents – we just give them a login code and password and away they go.
Results were immediate and we are able to process agent bookings more quickly and efficiently than ever before".

View the ATS Pacific website






Bushtracks Africa
Bushtracks Africa is a destination Management company that is perfectly situated at the new Gateway to Zambia, Livingstone. Bushtracks is expanding its Tour Operating Department by bringing in experts from England who in turn are training local staff to manage International Tourists in an increasing competitive market. In order to achieve this Bushtracks has invested heavily in its infrastructure of which Tourplan software is a vital part.



Mr. Christopher Tett comments:
"Bushtracks was successful four years ago in winning a large hotel groups ground handling business in Livingstone.
We had a 'manual' system which coped to a large degree however as the volumes increased we found that we were not standard in our replies to agents, missing manual 'cards' which meant a loss of revenue and having to rely upon separate data entry into an accounts package in order to see how the performance of the company was doing. On doing thorough research on various reservations systems over two years, we invited Mr. Leigh Ingle (Tourplan Southern Africa) to present to the entire office.
His presentation illustrated the flexibility of Tourplan and its 'front to back' integrated system. All members of the staff agreed that Bushtracks should purchase Tourplan."

According to the Ministry of Tourism in Zambia, Zambia has seen a massive increase in the amount of tourists from 2003 to 2004. We predict the same increase again for 2005 and are gearing up for the same by further investment in our infrastructure to cope with the increase in tourists coming through to Livingstone.



Bushtracks is embarking on some serious new projects to enhance Livingstone as a Gateway to the Region and in particular Zambia.

Victoria Falls Proflight has opened the 'gateway' by offering discerning guests the opportunity to fly to some amazing parks within Zambia that offer superb experiences equal to the best parks in Africa.

Livingstone Activities include a Tour of the Falls, Rich cultural experiences, Adrenalin Activities and Game Drives in the local Mosi-oa-Tunya Park and Chobe National Park, Botswana.

New activities under development include Steam Train Safaris - in conjunction with National Heritage, the Zambian custodians of Historic Assets Bushtracks is developing a Zambian Steam Train to offer short excursions in and around Livingstone. This will give guests the opportunity to 'feel the spray on their faces' whilst sipping Champagne on the Victoria Falls Bridge, as well as visits to the Railway museum to take a step back in time. The locomotive was rescued from ruin by the famous Wildlife Artist, David Shepherd, and restored. The Victoria Falls Steam Railways Company, a division of Bushtracks is restoring the locomotive again to be fully operational this year in time for the Centenary celebrations of The Victoria Falls Bridge, Zambia Railways and Livingstone town.

Bushtracks Botswana - Due to such popular demand for guests to see the Chobe National Park, Bushtracks has decided to expand into Botswana and provide the same level of high service to its clients in the town of Kasane.


Learn more about the Bushtracks Africa experience here.







Williment World Travel

Williment World Travel Limited was incorporated in 1967 by the late Mick Williment (All Black 1964 – 1967). Mick established a business arranging tours for sports teams, clubs and supporters.



Today the company is set-up as one of New Zealand’s leading Inbound and Outbound special interest and sports tour operators. Williment Travel is the official agent to such on-going world events as the Rugby World Cup, Hong Kong Sevens, All Blacks Test Matches, Cricket World Cup and the Netball World Cup. Williments also promote official packages to other worldwide events, including the V8 SuperCar Series (Australia & New Zealand), the Warriors and Melbourne Cup.

Williments also has an excellent portfolio of corporate clients, including financial institutions, government organisations, IT companies, sporting associations, (such as the New Zealand Rugby Footbal Union) and many other medium to small businesses.


Ross Jamieson & Duncan Garvie

“Our Rugby World Cup tours are typical of the group tours events we handle” says Ross Jamieson (Director).
“We publish several tour itineraries (via brochure and web site) to suit our clients and corporate customers. Each itinerary includes airfares, transfers, hotel accommodation, match tickets, official All Blacks clothing, optional sightseeing tours and of course an experienced guide”.
“This Year we expect to process over 6000 groups & tour passengers on Tourplan, in addition to our other corporate & retail business. Many of these travellers are regulars on our famous All Blacks, Bledisloe Cup and Rugby Sevens tours”.



“We installed Tourplan in late 2002 to replace a range of custom made software, spreadsheets and a separate accounting package. The first event we ran on Tourplan was the International Rugby Sevens in Wellington and we had record numbers for the weekend. Tourplan was used to process all client, agent and corporate bookings, produce the documentation and handle all accounting and reporting for the event.”
“All staff were impressed with the speed and ease of use when using Tourplan software. The greatest benefits to us are in the area of system integration – we only enter the data once now and it flows through to all areas of operations and accounting.”

This improves accuracy and means we can monitor progress on each event in real-time.

Full details of all Williment's packages.







Walkers Tours

Walkers Tours and Whittall Boustead (Travel) Ltd are members of John Keells Holdings Limited group of companies in Sri Lanka. Along with Mackinnons Tours and eco and adventure operator Nature Odyssey they have over 35% market share. They also have strong relationships with international names in the industry including Thomas Cook, Kuoni and Hotelplan.
These companies provide a wide range of holiday experiences from Round Tours of the exotic and historic Interior to resorts at world famous beaches in both Sri Lanka and The Maldives.



Mr. Vasantha Leelananda - the Managing Director of Walkers Tours in Colombo and Mr. Nigel Spiers - Sales Manager for Tourplan Pacific.

John Keells Holdings’ Leisure sector also includes 2 resorts in the Maldives, 8 resorts in Sri Lanka and 2 five star Colombo hotels.
Further expansion is planned for the fast growing Indian Tourism market and additional property acquisitions in the Maldives.



Ms. Sara Lim (Senior Consultant - Tourplan Asia) with her team of data entry staff at Walkers Tours. Sara comments that:

“It is great to work with such enthusiastic and dedicated people. Progress with installation, training and data entry has been excellent. This is primarily due to total commitment to the project from everybody in the company including the management team.”

Mr Dilshad Sadiq – Walkers Tours’ Manager of Quality and Special Projects says:

“Tourplan was selected because it could handle the diverse requirements of the group’s Destination Management Companies. Tourplan’s integrated approach to reservations and accounting systems was also very attractive.
Tourplan’s iCom technology will allow us to import bookings electronically from our key partners such as Kuoni, Thomas Cook and Hotelplan.”

Walkers Tours and Whittall Boustead (Travel) Ltd
John Keells Holdings Limited







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