iBooking worked with Terravision on the development of our unique product for the coach and bus transport industry. iBooking Ticket lies at the heart of the Terravision solution and has allowed the company to move it's core business processes online, as well as open up entirely new opportunities to work with partners and affiliates.

The Company
Terravision Srl originated as an Italian company born out of a desire by a veteran in Italy's transportation and tourism industry, Dr. Fabio Petroni, to facilitate passenger coach transportation to and from high trafficked areas. Terravision Srl with its head offices in Italy and England needed to offer coach tickets for sale online quickly and easily. Further, they needed to extend the reach of the system beyond web customers to allow Point of Sale operators in busy locations throughout Italy and the South of England to process ticket sales and to run reports to show expected passenger numbers from every serviced location. With a an active partner base in the form of leading airlines such as Easyjet, Hapag and Ryanair, Terravision recognised the opportunities of linking an online ticketing solution with its partners.

The company realised the potential for online sales and understood how an active affiliate solution could revolutionise its business. In late 2003 they set out to find the right partner who could not only deliver the technical solution, but could share an element of the project risk, and act as a long term partner in securing the success of the new sales channel.

The iBooking choice simply didn't turn out to be selecting the best product and services, it's a choice partnership with a company that knows e-commerce inside out and provides all round solutions: website concept, tracking, online sales, management tools, web marketing, and hosting. iBooking measures its success by Terravision's successes and since both are equally committed to customer satisfaction its win-win all around.
Maria Marchioni - IT Projects Manager

Scope of Work/Requirements
The iBooking web site was the first point of contact for Terravision. Recognising our ability to deliver complex ticketing and booking solutions an initial approach was made which then became the specification and invitation to tender for the complete Terravision solution. With a key driver for iBooking being an opportunity to share project risk and secure long term value through a commission share arrangement, we were keen to demonstrate to Terravision that we were the best choice for the project. With an already established product in iBooking� Ticket we knew we had the platform that could be used to develop the Terravision ticketing engine. Our first step was to Terravision's business and to build a model that demonstrated how the new platform would interact with Terravision staff, web customers, partners and sales agents. We helped create the vision that has now emerged as the key to the company's future sales efforts.

Teravision quickly recognised that iBooking had all the elements in place to make a long term partnership a viable and sustainable solution. Not only did we have the technical know-how and experience to deliver a complex web-based ticketing system, but we also had the business knowledge and creative experience to design and deliver the web channels that would help to encourage customers to book online. We developed the user interface, integrated the payment gateway, and helped devise the partner model that would help to drive ticket sales from a variety of disparate sources.

Working to a very tight timescale, an early requirement was to get secure and reliable online ticketing working from the Terravision web site as quickly as possible. Working with the core iBooking Ticketing engine, we got to grips with the complexities of coach timetables and mapped Terravision's schedules into a business logic that would drive the online engine. With hundreds of journeys departing from locations across Italy and the South of England, our challenge was to create both a user friendly booking interface and an intuitive back office system.

After understanding the complexities of route scheduling and ensuring that the system could support an unlimited number of new locations, journey types, and routes to be created within the back office we also had to design the pricing and customer model. This involved developing a customised shopping cart solution to handle multiple pricing types, discounting, promotions and concessions. Not only that, but Terravision had a requirement to deliver the complete solution in English, but also in Italian, German, Spanish and French! To add a further twist, Terravision actually exist as two independent companies, one operating in Italy and one operating in the UK. We had to devise a method for displaying all prices in both Euros and Sterling but to split the payment gateway into two � sending Sterling payments into a UK bank account for all journeys commencing in the UK, and Euro payments to an Italian account for all journeys starting in Italy. A tall order for any developer, but iBooking delivered!

The Terravision project entailed at least three complete solutions integrated together: the customer view where journeys could be planned and tickets secured online, the administrator view where all aspects of the system could be controlled along with a detailed and flexible reporting system for business intelligence, and a Point of Sale solution where operators could upload ticket sales data or issue tickets to walk-in customers. Additional modules were also required to handle affiliate sales, to create dedicated micro-sites for airline partners including Easyjet, and Tour Operator modules all providing different windows into the same core system.

The POS solution
With more than 17 Point of Sale locations, Terravision had a need to ensure that each location could enter sales data into the system and also report on passengers due to depart from each location on a given day or time. This level of business reporting being an essential step in helping to plan resources and ensure that passengers could be accommodated at their chosen departure time, which would often coincide with flight arrivals. The iBooking solution was to create a web application and user logon model that gives each POS operator a desktop application built entirely within a browser environment. Using a standard Internet connection, the POS user can logon to their view of the system and issue single ticket sales or batch upload ticket sales for each journey type. The system protects the POS operator from functionality they don't require and also allows single click reporting to show passengers expected to travel from the location on a particular day.

The Tour Operator Solution
Working with a network of hotels throughout Italy, Terravision recognised an opportunity to offer a win-win business relationship with hoteliers. By devising a partner interface to the ticketing system, iBooking were able to create a module to offer Tour Operators and hoteliers an interface where ticket sales could be placed on behalf of customers. By specifying a commission amount in the Back Office, Terravision could track Tour Operator sales and issue commission cheques on a monthly basis. This extended the reach of the system, acting as a new marketing channel and helping to strengthen both the Terravision brand and the relationship with travel industry partners.

The Affiliate Solution
Working together, iBooking and Terravision devised an affiliate business model that extends far beyond the normal affiliate relationship where links are exchanged between web sites and partners. With several large airlines as partners, Terravision were keen to cement business relationships by offering integration with airline ticket systems. Working initially with Easyjet, the project requirement was to develop a dedicated micro-site available in 4 languages with a customised window to the Terravision ticketing system. Taking customer data directly from Easyjet, we were able to transfer this data directly into the ticketing system and streamline the buying process for Easyjet customers wanting to organise coach travel from London or Rome airports to the city centre. The challenge for iBooking was to meet the strict branding and functionality requirements requested by Easyjet at the same time as extending the ASP model to allow an unlimited number of affiliates to be created in the same way.

The result is a powerful, yet flexible affiliate solution that offers a customised ticketing solution to be linked from any partner web site. With a dedicated affiliate web site developed by iBooking the recruitment of new affiliates is managed alongside the affiliate extranet where payment history, commission rate, and banner links can all be tracked and co-ordinated. New functionality was added to the Terravision Back Office which allows affiliate accounts to be created and administered and a number of parameters to be modified. For example, selected airline partners may only wish to offer a subset of Terravision journeys to their customers. This is easily handled by the administrator who can enable and disable affiliate routes at will. The system also allows different affiliate royalties to be paid, rewarding bigger players who refer more business with higher commission rates. The result has been the opening up of a new sales channel for Terravision with limitless potential. Affiliate sales are now contributing a substantial volume of new monthly sales with Terravision in the driving seat and managing the creation and approval of new affiliates with a few clicks in the secure back office.

Key Features/benefits to client
The Terravision project is a testimony to how web technology can be used to create new business processes and generate new channels to market. Working to an initially limited brief, iBooking and Terravision have formed a strong partnership with a collaborative approach to both development and marketing of the solution. With iBooking adopting an approach that demonstrates commitment to making risk/reward solutions pay, both partners are enjoying the benefits of a project that has the scope to add significant long term value to each business. Terravision online ticket sales have moved from a standing start to a valued and essential part of the business model. With the affiliate programme in place and new partnerships being forged daily, the Terravision iBooking partnership has already proven to be a winner.

As a SaaS product, iBooking Ticket is a uniquely powerful suite of products that can rapidly enable any local or national coach or bus company to build an online sales channel. With the iBooking risk/reward approach, project costs are reduced and customers guaranteed an unrivalled commitment to making the project a success.

When Terravision approached iBooking we recognised the potential to build a product aimed at the global coach and bus ticketing market. We are always open to working with potential partners to extend our model to offer innovative ticketing and booking solutions into new areas. Please contact us for more details.

http://www.terravision.eu

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