Destinology
Accurate data loading for luxury tour operator
Speed to market with
100 special offers in 5 working days
Freed up time for the product team
to support the company’s growth strategy
Background
Destinology is a market-leading tour operator in the UK travel industry, offering tailor-made luxury holidays to a diverse range of destinations worldwide. Their portfolio of luxury holidays is marketed to consumers online and supported by a dedicated team of travel experts, providing the very best in personal service. In the back office, this is supported by an in-house content management system (CMS).
Like many tour operators in the UK, Destinology deals with the everyday demands of contracting and its associated quality control issues. These include frequent contract amendments, stop sales and special offers that constantly need to be loaded. This requires flexible staffing over weekends and peak periods, as well as additional resources for staff management and training. Their ultimate challenge is to find experienced staff at a competitive price.
Back in 2009 Destinology chose Open Destinations to provide a new outsourcing solution for contract loading. Before any loading, an in-depth consultation was conducted to evaluate back-office systems and processes.
“Our relationship with Open Destinations continues to grow from strength to strength. Their speed to market and operational efficiency allows us to meet the demands of our high net worth customers with confidence.”
Ricky Wason, Product Director, Destinology
Solution
Streamlining Operations for Scalable Growth
A new procedure manual was created, documenting the process for loading and checking contracts, escalation procedures and reporting structure. Flexible staffing was introduced. As loading demands increased, the size of the team and targets also grew. Targets and priorities were agreed. Destinology sought an improved quality score of 99% accuracy, as well as the loading of contracts, amendments, special offers, and stop sales. A priority list was introduced to address the urgent priorities that were arising – ie, special offers to get to market.
A bespoke training plan was developed. New staff were trained over 3 weeks, combining new procedures with the existing CMS training manual. A workflow was tailored to meet the specific requirements, featuring a pre-defined, detailed checklist for each activity.
“The quality assurances they provide give us peace of mind and communication is always clear and proactive, supporting the importance that we place on getting it right first time. It’s a truly valued partnership built on trust and shared standards of excellence.”
Results
Targets achieved
By predicting trends, Open Destinations ensured that Destinology was prepared to cope with last-minute demands and peak booking seasons by planning staffing levels up to three months in advance. The high level of accuracy eliminated data integrity risk, minimising losses to the company.
Timely reporting
Destinology receives a daily email with a work update, as well as weekly and monthly summaries outlining key business challenges and productivity.
A cost-effective solution
The new system freed up the time of the Destinology product team, allowing them to take on more critical tasks and support the company’s growth strategy.
Speed to market
Open Destinations provided an experienced team who were familiar with complex products and able to react quickly to changing priorities. Back in October 2020, Destinology needed to introduce special offers for the Caribbean into the marketplace with less than one week’s notice. The Open Destinations team loaded 100 special offers in five working days, achieving 99.7% accuracy.
