London – Greece-based easyCruise has gone live with IBS’ Cruise Partner™, a new-generation third-party cruise reservation system, to handle the entire reservation process to support their business. IBS, a leading provider of new-generation IT solutions to the global travel, transportation and logistics (TTL) industry, has signed an agreement with easyCruise to provide all aspects of reservation processes via the web for consumers, travel agents, call centers and Amadeus Cruise for external travel agents / tour operators.
Cruise Partner’s new web front end IBS Travel Gateway (iTG) system of provides web-based multi-lingual interfaces for call centers, agents (B2B) and consumer (B2C) reservations. IBS provides Cruise Partner as a hosted service out of its facilities in Ashburn, Virginia. The system went live in December 2008 and easyCruise has started accepting bookings on their website and through call centers for cruises sailing from March 2009.
Cruise Partner is used by major brands like MSC, Louis Cruises and Star Cruises and is the recognized leader in third-party cruise-line reservations systems. It distinguishes itself by its supreme scalability, with clients ranging from small, niche players to mega cruise lines. Every level of operational detail is attended to; from interchangeable cabin configuration to variable segment embark / disembark pricing, to pricing agreements, rules engine-based discounts and commission structures.
“Cruise Partner will enable easyCruise to enhance their customer satisfaction by providing user-friendly reservations for the entire cruise, including shore excursions, optional on-board packages, special requests and amenities with the future potential to book travel insurance and flight arrangements, etc.” said VK Mathews chairman and CEO of the IBS Group.
“easyCruise’s focus for 2009 is to increase our distribution through the travel trade,” added Paul Ellerby, sales and marketing director, UK and USA, easyCruise, “and as a well-established platform Cruise Partner can help us to achieve this goal. We are delighted to have been able to launch the new system in time for [the] post-Christmas booking period.”