Be Special Tours

Location:

Austria

Partnership period:

2023-2024

Industry:

Travel and Hospitality

Technologies:

Laravel, Bootstrap, PHP, MySQL, HTML, jQuery, Javascript,

Team Size:

1 Frontend Developer, 2 Backend Developer

Competitive Environment

The travel industry is expanding exponentially as demand for personalized vacation packages booms. Be Special Tours competes in this space through a smart blend of deep regional experience, tourism partnerships, and technology-led engagement.

However, reliance on Excel sheets, emailed documents and fragmented third-party booking engines caused significant challenges in providing a seamless experience as operations expanded across Asia and Europe. Customer details existed in silos across regions preventing personalized engagements critical for repeat business. Dynamic packaging capabilities were also inadequate to design tailored offerings aligned to membership tiers that tourists expected.

Order tracking was complex with a high probability of errors or missed follow-ups at key transaction milestones leading to booking failures. Mismatched payments and order data caused accounting inefficiencies as matching reconciliations was manual. Voucher generations for itinerary confirmations, special activity inclusions, etc. being driven by spreadsheets was not just tedious and error-prone but also inflexible to add customizations that customers demanded.

Such process bottlenecks increased with add-on locations as coordination overheads went up across finance teams, travel coordinators, and customers. It directly impacted revenues while eroding customer satisfaction indices as delays and confusion crept in. The problems underscored the urgency of an integrated solution that could unify data with automated workflows.

Problem Statement

Multiple constraints with existing booking management processes were identified by Be Special Tours:

Customer information in data silos across regions preventing personalized engagements critical for repeat business
Booking status tracking was complex with a high probability of errors or missed follow-ups at key milestones
Mismatched payments and orders data caused accounting inefficiencies and booking reconciliation overheads
Voucher generations for itinerary confirmations, activity inclusions, etc. being manual was tedious while prone to input errors
Communication with customers on booking modifications involved coordination across multiple teams leading to confusion and duplication

Such issues directly led to booking failures, revenue leakages, and deficiencies in customer experience which underscored the urgency of streamlined workflows.

Solution and Objectives

After evaluating multiple solutions, Be Special zeroed in on core must-haves for an integrated booking platform:

Centralized customer database providing complete profiles, preferences, and interactions
Flexible packages bundling engine to design specialized holiday offerings targeting varied membership tiers
Real-time availability enabled booking engine integrated with their website
Payment gateway connectivity supporting global multi-currency transactions
Workflow automation capabilities for notifications, and voucher generations triggered by the purchase cycle stage
Administration console providing bird's eye visibility into bookings data and key metrics with flexible reporting

The blueprint had to seamlessly interface across tools like website CMS, payment systems, and CRM databases while being globally accessible across devices to employees and customers. Dixeam was selected as the technology partner for their expertise in architecting customized solutions.

Technology Planning

Team Dixeam charted out a cloud-based architecture centered around:

Laravel framework: Enabled rapid application development critical for iterative releases while keeping scalability and security built-in
MySQL database: Optimized to handle transaction-intensive flows like bookings data across years catering to returning tourists
Custom API connectors: Tight integration with existing systems like CRM eliminating data silos
UI/UX focused on employee productivity: Intuitive interface targeted role-based access reducing room for errors
jQuery frameworks: Ensured seamless experience across desktop and mobile channels for globally distributed teams always on the move
Queue management: Handling load balancing and fail-over scenarios during seasonal rush enabling resilience

The technology blueprint kept focus on workflow streamlining while enriching customer as well as employee experience. After finalizing timelines, phased rollout commenced.

Phases

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Conclusion and Results

In 2 months since rollout, the tailored booking engine platform delivered:

Over 20% improved productivity in global bookings management-related workflows
25% higher customer satisfaction index based on feedback surveys
13% increased repeat purchase rates contributing heavily to annual growth
8% expanded booking volumes across geographies and package categories
5% reduction in cancelled or modified bookings minimizing revenue leakages

"The biggest value has been in enabling our teams to strengthen innovation focusing on customer processes as business expanded across continents," acknowledged the Director.

Key Challenge

A major technology challenge was seamlessly interfacing diverse workflows across booking coordination, finance controllership, and customer self-service modules while keeping the platform accessible across devices globally.

By investing upfront in API architecture aligned to microservices principles, Team Dixeam overcame integration complexity allowing rapid capability expansion in the future while keeping customer convenience as North Star.

Next Steps

When queried about future plans, the Director indicated evaluating loyalty management modules allowing bespoke tier-based package suggestion enhancements to stimulate repeat purchases. The integrated data foundation also opens personalized marketing capabilities to boost the customer's lifetime value.

With Dixeam driving the technology transformation initiatives as strategic partners, Be Special Tours sees itself as reinventing travel experiences globally by embedding customer centricity at the heart of business processes.

Be Special Tours

Be Special Tours

Competitive Environment

Problem Statement

Solution and Objectives

Technology Planning