[London, ENGLAND] Top U.K. package holiday company
Thomson Holidays
has turned itself into an e-business within 90 days,
according to Monday’s announcement by its technology
providers.
The project was jointly undertaken by Texan e-business
software supplier
NEON Systems, integrator
Inform
Information Systems (IIS), and a team of Thomson’s
in-house systems developers. The result is a new site
for JUST, a
holiday brand launched last year with the Web in mind.
JUST, which offers holidays that are intended to appeal
to what Thomson calls the “independently minded type of
holidaymaker,” now has an efficient online search and
booking system to rival the dedicated dotcom travel
agents.
“We selected NEON Systems Shadow Web Server technology
because of the ease with which it rejuvenated our existing
online booking systems,” said Stephen Ringer, senior project
manager at Thomson Holidays.
Powered by an IBM System/390 mainframe running NEON
Systems’ Shadow Web Server, the Thomson Holidays’
e-commerce backbone runs various Windows NT resident
applications to deliver its content channels. Shadow
Web Server receives in-bound XML from the delivery
channels, integrating closely with the holiday firm’s
traditional availability, reservation and booking systems.
However, Thomson Holidays still has some work to do
in maintaining a suitable presence on the Web. A search
for “Thomson Holidays” on AltaVista brings up, in the
No.1 spot, The
Completely Unofficial Thomson Realfeedback Site — where
disgruntled holidaymakers, disappointed by their vacation
experiences, vent their displeasure.