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CHALLENGE Tourico Holidays, one of the world’s fastest growing travel wholesalers, sought to strengthen its relationship with strategic partner Harrah’s through a direct connection that would avoid time-consuming extranet updates and faxed delivery of bookings. Tourico has more than 146 international travel distribution websites, more than 15,000 merchant hotel agreements, and operates from 32 locations around the world in 23 languages. For this initiative, Tourico wanted to strengthen relations with Harrah’s while reducing the cost of transactions and operations. “We knew there had to be a solution that would enhance our ability to add more hotel room supply as well as streamline operations,” said Asi Ginio, Executive Vice President of Global Product Development at Tourico. The current process presented a significant obstacle to Tourico’s strategic plan for growth. Tourico wanted to improve its inventory capabilities. Too often, Tourico would sell out an allotment for a particular period, leaving it in a position where staff had to spend precious time negotiating additional inventory and rates in order to sell more rooms. It was crucial to have a system where room supply could satisfy demand from Tourico customers. With a dynamic connection to suppliers, Tourico knew it could prearrange electronic access to additional inventory to sell without having to contact the hotel company and conduct on-the-fly negotiations for inventory and rates. SOLUTION HBSi offers wholesalers, tour operators, and Online Travel Agencies a connectivity solution for real-time shopping and reservation delivery with access to expanded inventory. Via the iDemand GatewayTM, hotels can connect to and manage multiple distribution channels. Likewise, electronic distribution channels, like Tourico can connect to hotel partners for dynamic access to inventory beyond the traditional allotment system enabling them to sell more. Through OTA-compliant XML interfaces, the iDemand Gateway enables the transfer of data and application of business rules for rates, availability, and reservations data between hotel property management, central reservation, or revenue management systems to distributor systems regardless of the type or age of the technology on either side. RESULTS “Connectivity through HBSi’s iDemand Gateway did two things for us,” said Ginio. “First, it strengthened our strategic partnership with Harrah’s, and, second, it reduced our operating costs by making our work easier and smoother.” “I encourage those considering moving to direct connects and away from the traditional fax and email systems to talk to us about our experience with iDemand Gateway connectivity,” Ginio noted. From last summer to this summer, Tourico has tripled sales with those key hotels connected via the HBSi iDemand Gateway. “We’ve seen sales grow from $4 million to $12 million for those hotel partners where we connect via the iDemand Gateway,” said Ginio. “Due in large part to our Permanent Room Block (PRB) business model, we’ve seen 70 percent growth in the past year alone. However, we work with many suppliers outside that model and for the same period, we’ve tripled sales with iDemand Gateway connected partners.” The iDemand Gateway creates an environment where Tourico can also prearrange last room availability with hotels to allow Tourico access to room inventory, and dynamic pricing, beyond a set allotment and negotiated rates. “We no longer worry about running out of rooms to sell. If our hotel partners have rooms, we have a dynamic arrangement that allows us access to extended inventory so we can meet demand,” said Ginio. “If the hotel has rooms, we have rooms to sell. And that’s the chief reason we’ve been able to triple our sales. Going forward, as we get more supply partners connected to the iDemand Gateway, we expect to grow our sales exponentially. This is the wave of the future. No other system offers us such an easy way to expand our sales.”
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