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D13 OnTour: ESPRIT Project No. 26956• Another marketing problem addresses the ability to attract more “direct customers” 2 :Up to now, Zeus attracts only a small number of “direct customers”. Zeus believes thatelectronic media advertisement (Internet/Web) will increase this number dramatically.The electronic information targeted to these customers should be available to tour operatorsand travel agents as well as “direct customers”. In order to attract more customersthe electronic services provided should be flexible enough in order allow thecustomer to make his/her choices and reservations either at home or at a travelagent's/tour operator's office. At the same time it should reduce the effort required forbooking for direct clients as well as to accelerate and optimise the communicationprocess with the direct clients. Also, booking confirmations for the direct clients dependheavily on the supplier. Zeus will welcome a system offering better communicationand automated booking confirmation procedures for direct clients.4.1.4 AutopapasAutopapas car rental supplier:Information flow• Standardisation of the reservation exchange system interfaces used by the various businesspartners of Autopapas would solve one of the main existing problems of data exchangedue to the usage of different database IT systems.Information quality• Currently, brochures are printed only once a year, so last minute changes are not reflectedin them and updates have to be transmitted to clients on time. Autopapas wouldbenefit from an electronic service catalogue, which would be used by the clients andprovide electronic transmission of information to its customers. Such a system wouldreduce the personnel resources required for transmitting an update and it would providean automated way of transmitting the information.Information handling• Availability requests are mainly processed manually following the steps: request reception,resource checking (using IT system), generating confirmation and sending it to theclient. This process could be time and labour consuming. Automation of this processwould help minimise personnel resources.• In order to minimize personnel resources Autopapas would benefit from an automatedinvoice generation and voucher checking. In this case a solution could be the usage ofSmart Cards.Direct communication between service provider and client• Autopapas has currently only very restricted possibilities to attract more reliable “directcustomers”. An Internet based system would help in this line of business.2 Clients who directly book services at Zeus without involving a tour operator or travel agency.7 June 1999 D13V04S3 Page 14
D13 OnTour: ESPRIT Project No. 269564.1.5 Istron BayInformation flow• Automation of the payment procedure should be one of the problems which could besolved by the use of automated electronic transmission of information and bank transactions.Usage of Smart Cards would help processing the vouchers and automate thepayment procedure.• Electronic availability of the booking positions and related statistics provided by TourOperators and Travel Agents would help Istron Bay to plan its activities for the nextseason.Information quality• The actuality of the brochures, which are produced once a year, has been identified as adrawback. Therefore, Istron Bay would benefit from cost effective and easily producedelectronic service catalogues, which would be used by the clients. These cataloguesshould provide electronic transmission of updated information to relevant parties. A solutionwould be Internet based catalogues with appropriate software for transmittingupdated information to the clients, tour operators, direct customers, and travel agents.• Automated ways of updating an existing contract with a tour operator in order to includeand take into account new service availability. Such a system would involveautomated contract negotiation among the interested parties and automated advertisementof the new service availability.• Istron Bay would benefit from a better communication and information system betweenthe hotel and the tour operators, which would give advanced information to thehotel. Tour operator systems should make the reservation / booking information availableas soon as possible in an automated way. To minimise the overbooking problem itis required that the tour operators make their booking and booking positions availableas soon as possible, preferably before the season starts. This would minimise the currentoverbooking problems.Information handling• Another problem is the availability request processing. Automation of processingavailability requests and generating confirmation and sending it to the client would beof great benefit to Istron Bay.Direct communication between service provider and client• Istron Bay requires an Internet based advertisement system to improve the “direct customer”marketing.4.1.6 MarisInformation flow• Electronic availability of the booking position provided by Tour Operators and TravelAgents as well as statistical data and customer information would help Creta Maris toplan next season's activities.7 June 1999 D13V04S3 Page 15
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