Luxurious Sri Lanka Case Study

Synopsys

Luxurious Sri Lanka is another solution given to one of the key clients of Cryptodyne and a leading tour operator in Sri Lanka Red Dot Tours. Our client needed a solution to Hotel & Leisure industry which enables prospect tourist from any where in the globe to book a flight and reserve hotel accommodation in Sri Lanka online. Initially primary focus is given to UK based tourist who are interested to travel in Sri Lanka. Although there were some solutions for flight booking and hotel reservations it was always challenging to undertake project in a competitive industry such as Hotel & Travel. Any how importantly our solution was needed to enhance the business image of our client Red Dot tours. As for any other client ultimate benefit required by the Red Dot is to increase their customer base and the revenue generation .

Our initial focus was on defining the problem domain and scoping the project. One of our key strengths in identifying the problem domain was our previous experiences in providing solutions in hotel & leisure industry. This was very important to carry out the requirement analysis. A key objective of the client was to provide as much as possible travel information about Sri Lanka to the portal user which is rarely available with any other solution promoting Sri Lankan travel & tourist industries. Red dot, our client has mastered Sri Lanka travel & tour industry from top to bottom. We have done some initial research work before the requirement analysis to identify information sources for our solution. In our solution publishing of text and graphical information is a key and obtaining up-to-date information is essential. One of the biggest challenges we faced in designing our solution was to drive away the competitors to attract more tour prospects to Sri Lanka through our solution to Red Dot. This was not an easy task as understanding portal user is a very complicated issue. It is mainly due to wide range of cultural , geographical , social domains that they belongs to, could produce different influences on their expectations for a such solution . Customers may seek variety of information to make decisions. The advantage we had was geographical domain for which the emphasis given was broadly restricted to Europe and mainly to United Kingdom. Since the requirements were demanding it was not simple to get the acceptance for layouts or system components from our client. Any how proper scoping and detail requirement analysis had reduced the issues associated with customer acceptance significantly.

In addition we had to deliver the solution within strict time frames and the budget which too was a constraint. By then our resource base was also limited and we had to efficiently use them.

Solution

Business Requirements
After properly scoping the requirements we have done a detail requirement analysis. Our solution is primarily hotel reservation system and Airline booking system for tourist from Europe ( mainly UK) to Sri Lanka. It requires all the necessary information to the potential users to make the decision about reservation of Airline ticket either to or from Sri Lanka and to reserve accommodation in required destinations in Sri Lanka where the traveler is planned to take a break. I-trip tool was used to build the itinerary for the traveler prospect. I-trip is an itinerary tour planner which is a tool designed and developed to support our solution to Red Dot Tours. This gives the provision for him to planned the tour well in advance. The cost of the tour is automatically calculated and provided in the I-trip tool so it is possible to re arrange the tour according to the budget. Interactive maps are available with attractive information such as road maps to view the main roads connecting key destinations, Geographical view to see and identify the altitude changes in the map , Activities , National parks, Historical sites can be searched through the map so that User can arrange the travel plan best meets his requirements. Further option is available for the user to arrange his own tour plan with less information or to arrange the assisted tour planner with more information to arrange the tour itinerary based on those information. Own tour plan option is more suitable for frequent visitors with more experience with important destinations, activities etc to plan out the tour itinerary. I-trip is a specially designed tool for Luxurious Sri Lanka so that prospect tourist can arrange the itinerary can also book a flight so that all the necessary tour planning and reservations can be done from one central point. Admin panel is available so that hotel information, Flight reservation information can be regularly updated and maintained. Payments for reservations can be made through payment gateway. Search option is available to search hotels, events, destinations and special offers.

Technical Requirements
Our technical solution was build using emerging tools and technologies to bring up the technologically sound, well designed functionalities to our solution. The dynamic nature of the solution and the is provided by the Flash (8.0) and Action Script 2.0 with the use of web services and it supports browsers IE 6.0 and above . In addition Quick time technology which provides 360 degrees panoramic view to rooms and lobby of the selected hotels in aesthetically superior images. In addition ASP .Net , C# .net were used in developing the application and communicating web services with flash objects. Backend support was given by SQL server 2000 and it is now geared to support SQL server 2005 as well.

Key Features of the Solution

Interactive map is available for user to search the information in relation to destinations , events which in turn direct the user to obtain feast of information in text and graphic formats to explore the user requirements.

I-trip Itinerary planner is a supporting tool specially designed for Luxurious Solution. User has the options to build the tour Itinerary independently or with the assistance from the I-trip tool and can be submitted to our client who is a tour operator.

Online travel reservation system is available to check the flight information and book a seat online. This is supported by flights of Sri Lanka's national air line operator and have provision to support other air lines if required.

Online Hotel reservation system is available so that the user can reserve hotel accommodation according to his needs. These information are organized and presented as such that the user can easily find what is required for him.

Search facility is available to the user to search the information according to his own requirements.

Panoramic view of the inside view of the hotels is provided by Quick time technology.

Admin panel is available to maintain the Hotel, Travel and other information to provide latest and uptodate information to the user.

SOLUTION BENEFITS

The proposed solution for the travel & hotel industry provides both tangible and intangible benefits to our clients business operations. Our client could attract huge number of travelers from United Kingdom and Europe through the portal. All the hotels listed in our web based solution gained highly through listing on it. They got the opportunity to publish all the important information about their services , accommodations , packages and rates to get the attention of the tour prospects. In addition Map is available to identify the location this very important since prolong war existing in some part of the country has created uncertainty among the western tourists. Availability of countries important places ,events is very helpful to schedule the tour since it could provide them entertainment , enjoyment and rich cultural taste of Sri Lanka to gain the best out of the tour. Although Sri Lanka is a popular tourist destination information pertaining to cultural glamour , breathtaking sceneries , rich holiday destinations are not in abundance with most of the available internet based solutions and our solution has designed after considering these facts. These extended information presented in our solution has increased the number of travelers to the country and to the listed hotels in our solution. There were many inquires to book those hotels from tourist of United Kingdom and many of them responded at least they have gain valuable information from the Luxurious solution. This is evident considering number of hits to the Luxurious web solution.

Profit is the ultimate goal of any business venture and increase internet visitors that could turn in to important tourist have already increase the occupancy rates thus increase revenue resulted from it. In addition to providing all the important information On line reservation provides self reservations by the tour prospect with little or no support of respective hotel administration. This has resulted in significant reduction of the administrative cost to increase the profitability. Most of the listed hotels in our solution have acknowledged it to our client.

Our solution has also catered travel booking portal mainly from United kingdom to Sri Lanka and vice versa. Sri Lanka's main air line carrier Sri Lankan air lines seat reservation is available in our solution. This has given the leverage to the traveler to book a flight to Sri Lanka online. This helps to make a tour decision in to tour reality and to turn business opportunity in to a business transaction.

Our client has acknowledged that they have gained very high reputation through our solution in the travel and leisure industry. Its corporate image among the peers in the industry has become impressive. It may help our client to enhance the business prospects through building relationship with users through key features it provides in a unique manner.