About

Thomas Cook, the second largest leisure travel group in Europe, markets over 1,000 vacation destinations all over the world.  Since its founding more than 150 years ago, Thomas Cook has tremendously grown its organization and has extended its brand to include Thomas Cook travel agencies, stores, Thomas Cook TV and Thomas Cook Airlines, the second largest airline in the United Kingdom.  Thomas Cook also operates several Web sites that offer its visitors an array of travel products and services, including several well known European brands: Neckermann Travel, Condor, Aldiana and Bucher Travel.

From consumers to travel agents, Thomas Cook understands the competitive edge gained by travel providers that have an electronic transaction system in place to help streamline their business processes. For Thomas Cook, it was important that this content management system (CMS) was efficient, easy-to-use and automated many tasks for its end-users across the globe.

Looking to reduce operational costs, streamline transactions and increase response times, Thomas Cook turned to a content management solution.

Challenge

According to a January 2006 report by PhoCusWright, a Connecticut-based travel research firm, the most popular destination for travelers continues to be the Internet. This year, travelers will spend about $79 billion online for leisure and self-booked business travel. To ensure that its diverse business needs could be met with a single content management system (CMS), Thomas Cook began the search for a solution that offered everything from pure content management to business process management. As a worldwide leader in travel and leisure, Thomas Cooke, wanted to redesign a site that would connect its several business components to users from around the globe.  After an extensive evaluation of all leading systems, Thomas Cook chose Open Text Web Solutions over other providers, including Documentum to manage its corporate Extranet.

“We wanted a flexible enterprise content management (ECM) system that our employees could use to update and administer our complex Web sites,” said Dr. Oliver Rengelshausen, Head of Sales, Thomas Cook AG. “The system also had to incorporate business processes, such as document management, in the same user interface. Open Text Web Solutions met every expectation and is the centerpiece of our tourism e-commerce platform for the online sale of leisure travel services.”

Solution

In addition to being the most cost-effective solution, Thomas Cook found the modular design of Open Text Web Solutions gave its organization the flexibility to implement systems that went beyond traditional content management and were integral to its e-commerce operations, such as document and business process management.  After the company’s integration partner, Denkwerk, implemented the solution, Thomas Cook redesigned all eight of the Group’s Web sites, creating a more cost-effective, flexible and dynamic tourism Extranet and e-commerce platform for online leisure travel sales.

“The creation of this Extranet breaks new ground in steadily advancing the transformation of sales processes in the tourism industry,” said Marco Zingler, business manager of Denkwerk. “Allowing dealers and travel agencies to connect so easily truly raises the bar in using technology to assist in the heavy demands of tourism.”

Using Open Text Web Solutions, Thomas Cook found it was able to dramatically streamline and automate day-to-day business transactions and communications with dealers, travel agencies, partners and vendors. In particular, Thomas Cook created a Web site that allows dealers and travel agencies to be connected through an Extranet, created by the solution (http://www.tc-infonet.de/), offering the latest news, specials and other up-to-the-minute information for its many travel agency properties. Using the solution's Business Process Manager, orders for advertising materials, including brochures, posters and catalogues are now automatically processed through the Extranet, along with direct mailings and repeat orders, which are automatically triggered on the Extranet.

Results

By creating a uniform portal infrastructure with Open Text Web Solutions, Thomas Cook has substantially reduced its costs. The system not only makes it possible to efficiently operate Thomas Cook Web sites, Neckermann Travel, Condor, Aldiana, and Bucher Travel but also directly connects travel agencies with the business processes of the Group. Through the integrated e-commerce strategy, Thomas Cook was able to establish the Internet as a profitable sales channel and thus gain important competitive advantages. Marco Zingler, business manager of Denkwerk, is convinced that "This project breaks new ground in the steadily advancing digitalization of sales processes in the tourism industry."

Open Text Web Solutions helped Thomas Cook achieve the following results:

• Efficient operation of all Thomas Cook Web sites
• Substantially decreased operation costs of travel and leisure services at or near travel destinations
• Automatic enforcement of corporate branding initiatives by separating content and layout
• Integration of external systems
• Extranet solution for connecting hundreds of travel agencies for automation of marketing materials
• Optimization of business processes and document management