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Primetravels.com
– Powerful E-Commerce Services to Manage Worldwide Travel
Operations Online
After six years of successful operations, Prime Travels wanted
to go online. In the process, they teamed with Icreon, to develop
Primetravels.com as an online service to provide 24/7 services
to customers. Providing online bookings for hotels, flights,
cars, cruises, and a whole range of tour packages, this powerful
online service provides real-time airline reservations bookings
through the Abacus CRS, chat facility to get instant help from
Prime Travel’s site operators, book online tours and make
online payment over a secure setup.
Customer Profile
Prime Travels is India’s leading travel company
that offers a complete range of international travel services.
With a flourishing business and vast industry experience, the
company promises some of the best travel services to customers,
within and outside India.
Business Requirement
The explosive growth of Internet as a medium of providing
worldwide services, instigated Prime Travels, to use this technology
as an extension of its expansion strategy – hence the emergence
of PrimeTravels.com.
Solution
Benefits
 E-commerce
integration for secure online transactions
Optimized
business processes for higher productivity
Dynamic
& Administrator-driven management
Customized
interface & faster download
Technologies Used
ASP
3.0
IIS
5.0
SQL
Server 2000
Requirement
As a leading provider of travel services, Prime Travels
was looking to extend its operations online. The idea was to
be continuously available and allow customers a value-added
experience in terms of online access, information, and transactions.
In other words, Prime Travels wanted a vertical portal, with
the functionality to book airline and railway reservations along
with advanced search capabilities to look for feasible travel
alternates such as hotels, airlines & railway reservations,
cruises, and car rental services.
The vortal would serve as an integrated e-commerce solution
providing information about various travel packages, tariff
rates, and new deals along with online transaction processing
capabilities.
Powerful Technology Implementation
for Optimized E-commerce Operations
Prime Travels planned their online presence in a phased
manner. We realized that primetravels.com was an implementation
of the company’s strategy to provide value-added services
to customers. The unique selling factor in this case was a highly
comprehensive vortal, with a feature-rich and easy to use interface,
in addition to high-end security for online payments.
Initially, the vortal was developed using Java technology with
a basic version of CRS powered by Amadeus. This CRS did not
allow customers to make online reservations, instead only allowing
searching seat availability with airline published fares. There
were tools such as the currency converter, passport guidelines,
weather information, and visa guidelines. For customers, the
member registration functionality was developed along with an
advanced search facility to look for travel destinations and
tour packages. However, this was just the first phase.
Phase II involved the implementation of a fully functional CRS
(powered by Abacus) with live seat availability and reservations
search features. This version also allowed Prime Travels to
enter their negotiated fare prices to the system. However, Prime
Travels required further enhancements to the features and functionality
of the vortal and therefore required another overhaul of the
vortal. Since then, there have been major revamps to keep the
vortal upbeat in terms of performance and technology. As part
of the Phase III implementation, the CRS was upgraded to the
XML version of Abacus. The vortal provides the facility to book
airline reservations through Abacus and make online payments
through the ICICI payment gateway. In all, primetravels.com
has always been a scalable setup with automated and process-driven
functionality.
The latest architecture is a complex multi-tier setup developed
using ASP 3.0 on the front-end and SQL Server 2000 on the backend.
Abacus is the middle layer responsible for managing real-time
online reservation of airline tickets. |
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The system automatically
generates the PNR number, which the customer can view through
primetravels.com. Ensuring secure online transactions has always
been the top priority, and thereby the vortal authenticates
protection through VeriSign. The ICICI online payment gateway
has been integrated with primetravels.com for secure and faster
online payment processing. The vortal also provides a Java-based
chat facility, using which customers can get in touch with the
PrimeTravels.com helpdesk and receive instant responses to their
queries.
Apart from this, travelers can search for various destinations,
tour packages, hotels, and economical deals offered by prime
travels. If a customer needs to book a tour, hotel, car rental,
or cruise online, they can simply select the tour package or
destination of choice, book the deal and make payments online.
Summary
Primetravels.com has been a crucial factor in improving
operational efficiency, increasing asset utilization, reducing
distribution costs, and building long-lasting relationships
with customers and employees. The Icreon team was involved in
Website promotion, and implementing a phased development strategy
for the vortal. Providing a self-managed and completely automated
setup, Primetravels.com is a highly reliable solution for travelers
within and outside India.
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