Royal Caribbean needed to build a new, robust Web-based reservation system for its travel agencies to market and sell cruises better. These agencies are key as they drive a large proportion of cruise-vacation revenue. The existing system had unacceptable limitations, including the inability of travel agents to book group reservations, and a user interface that required significant amount of agent training, which resulted in lower adoption rates.
According to Accenture research on High Performance Business in the world travel and tourism industry, travel and tourism organizations need to enhance “the customer experience with innovative search and trip-planning features.”1
Furthermore, by developing the new application based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA) platform using the Open Travel Alliance message specification, Royal Caribbean could expose its reservation services to its global distribution service partners and direct connect agencies. This would reduce booking fees significantly while making it simpler for agencies to sell Royal Caribbean cruises.
To help ensure the development of a Web-based application that could increase travel agents’ adoption of the software, the company chose Accenture based on its reputation and past success in the travel industry. In particular, Royal Caribbean wanted to leverage Accenture’s technology consulting and implementation experience to conduct planning and analysis, choose vendors and then build, test, implement and launch a Web-based cruise-booking application.
1 World Travel and Tourism: Securing Sustainable Growth for High Performance, Accenture, 2008