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The Only Clear Online Ticket Booking System for Terravision
[September 2003]

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 get coach tickets sold online quickly and smoothly, to offer remote customers the option to purchase tickets and receive confirmations in real time. The choice was clear from the start. Out of a vast pool of e-commerce companies and software, iBooking was the most responsive and attentive to Terravision's project needs. The mission according to Maria Marchioni, Terravision's project manager, was to go online in two weeks with an online ticket booking system for Terravision customers, and in the next month, setup online transaction interfaces for POS (point of sale) operators and backend management systems.

The online coach ticket booking system was needed for customers to purchase Terravision journey tickets anytime, anywhere and receive live confirmations. POS operators needed an online system to verify tickets, perform standard and batch transactions, and control sales reports for operators. The system administrator needed a system to manage the online ticket sales and to report and manage system  usage.

The first phase of the project was to get the online ticket booking system online as quickly as possible and for Terravision's worldwide customers to get used to purchasing tickets online.

iBooking customised its flagship iBooking product to integrate smoothly and encapsulate ticket offerings, customer registration, customer database queries, banking transactions and ticket confirmations. Terravision's Internet customers were booking and purchasing tickets smoothly in just two weeks.

iBooking POS - A web -based application
The iBooking POS system was used to setup an online POS interface for operators to easily logon and verify ticket purchases, perform transactions, record batch sales, and view sales reports. POS operators can now verify ticket purchases by departure points and dates, this information being vital in allocating the coach services to satisfy demand and control customer purchases. From this same interface, POS operators can perform standard online ticket sales with credit card or cash. Batch ticket sales are used to record ticket sales done offline. This is necessary in cases when ticket transactions are performed on flights or at long booth lines without accessing a computer. The really nice feature of the system is where POS operators can check on their individual sales reports to monitor their own sales performance.

iBooking management application
The management system was implemented to manage the online ticket booking platform and the POS platform. With this system, administrators can easily create ticket offerings; manage ticket parameters and site content. The administrator can generate graphic reports based on the sales records demonstrating sales for POSes, POS locations, departure points, and nationality of sales. On top of this, the administrator can generate CSV reports for extraction into Excel spreadsheets to report on sales sources and sales types. The beauty of this system is its simplicity to manage and the transparency of its controls for online booking and POS operations.

Beyond booking...
iBooking's web marketing expert Robin Balmforth, immediately set up strategies with Maria Marchioni to increase Terravision's online exposure and attract customers to the booking engine. The implementation of search engine optimization methods has already increased online booking visitors and sales. But the initiatives don't stop here; iBooking has set up a tour operator interface for discounted sales to the trade. Robin is working on setting up ‘Terravision's alliance programs to monitor sales from Terravision partner sites

These strategies to maximize sales more than make up for their cost. The first months sales have already covered Terravision's investment in the system.

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 and out and provides solutions all around: 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.

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