Tour operator systems provider Travelink
has signed a five year technology deal with winter sports travel specialist Ski France
.  The contract covers availability and booking systems and enables the operator to send daily price and capacity updates to its network of travel agents.
Ski France’s managing director Catherine Rankin said the new system would help the company sell its packages more effectively, especially during the volatile late booking period in January. 

“Agents can be confident they are looking at the latest availability and prices,” Rankin said.  “This has been possible in Viewdata for a while, but now it’s also possible with other systems.”

Ski France’s bookings at the end of September were 15 percent higher than at the same point last year.  Rankin said the company would use the Travelink system to support the next stage of the company’s growth, by extending its sales channels beyond its call-centre.  Ski France plans to offer a full booking facility on its website, and through other ski-related sites on the Internet, featuring precise price and availability information.

“Increasingly specialist tour operators are diversifying their distribution channels,” said David Jones, managing director of Travelink.

“It’s not uncommon for customers to tell us that they want to display the same availability information across a range of channels, possibly with prices varying from channel to channel according to demand.”

Catherine Rankin said Ski France had reviewed five tour operator systems before signing with Travelink. 

“The company is the market leading systems supplier for specialist tour operators, and has some exciting technology to help us take advantage of new travel trends,” she said.  “Its ability to help us sell across a wide range of channels, and its ground-breaking work in the area of component-based pricing, were what attracted us.”
——-