Tourisme Montréal
Microsoft Helps Tourisme Montréal create housing solution for city visitors
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Company Overview
Montréal is one of the province of Québec’s two main ports of entry. A large urban centre with one international airport, four Universities and infrastructure linking all areas of the province to the rest of Canada, it is among North America’s oldest cities and boasts a myriad of cultural attractions for visitors.
Business Challenge
Growth of the Montréal tourism industry has driven significant investments in the city, including the Palais des Congrès expansion and construction of new hotels. Tourisme Montréal is responsible for promoting Montréal as a travel destination. The organization directs promotional and hospitality efforts to attract leisure and business travelers, creates business opportunities for its members and economic benefits for the region, and guides the development of Montréal's tourist industry.
“Over the past few years, we have raised the visibility of Montréal as a choice travel destination, with the Web as one of our key marketing tool to carry our branding and impart information,” says Carmen Ciotola, vice-president marketing/communications Tourisme Montréal. “Our focus is to experience the city as attractive and easy as possible, and technology is critical to facilitating this process.”
In 2002, Tourisme Montréal upgraded its Web site with the help of Microsoft technology partner Diesel Marketing, as part of an overall branding, communications and marketing campaign to increase tourism. The organization wanted to create a more aggressive Internet presence, with a one-stop shop for information, planning and buying aimed at the traveling public, convention and travel planners, travel agencies, wholesalers and tour operators and corporate and government organizations.
One of the responsibilities of Tourisme Montréal is to offer housing services for major events. When Montréal’s gay and lesbian community was chosen to host Outgames 2006, an international sporting and cultural event, Tourisme Montréal recognized that its existing housing solution would be unable to handle the volume and the complexity generated by 16,000 expected attendees.
“The vision for the Outgames 2006 is to orchestrate the largest gathering of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transvestites, transsexuals and heterosexuals in North America. From a tourism perspective, this is an opportunity to solidify Montréal's reputation as a City of Games, and to demonstrate our ability to host such a large, diverse group,” says Carmen Ciotola, vice-president marketing-communications Tourisme Montréal.
The custom desktop application Tourisme Montréal was using to manage its housing system did not offer the online access and flexibility Tourisme Montréal and potential visitors were looking for. Competition from online reservation services made it imperative for the organization to provide the best possible housing services, so potential visitors could have the convenience of planning their trip outside business hours using the Internet. As well, the housing system did not provide the flexibility to book more than one person per room (with the full information about the host), or the import of all participants seamlessly.
With the convention industry evolving from corporate or trade association conferences to include more complex events such as Outgames 2006, Tourisme Montréal also needed a quicker, easier way to create pre-convention and post-convention real-time exportable reports than the manual system it had in place. The organization produces daily reports on activities and attendance during conventions, and at the end of each event, compiles a detailed summary report. Inputting information and communicating by hand made creating these reports time-consuming and labour-intensive.
With the Outgames 2006 as an impetus, Tourisme Montréal decided it needed a new solution.
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Solution
To provide a seamless, easy experience for potential visitors, Tourisme Montréal looked to Microsoft technology partner Diesel Marketing to help turn its IT infrastructure into a stable, secure and integrated environment. Meeting the needs of the Outgames 2006 organizers was a major objective, as well as the long-term benefits of the solution, which would have positive impact on both staff and tourists.
To ensure that the solution would meet Tourisme Montréal’s business and IT needs today while providing a platform that the organization could continue to grow on, Diesel Marketing offers a Housing solution made of two major systems: a Housing management system and dynamic Event Web sites integrated to Tourisme Montreal general Web site and framework. Each part of the system is built within proven business processes.
The integrated Housing management system allows booking agents to manage the housing process. It is possible to manage completely events and accommodations, units’ blocks and theirs rates, reservations, participants and communications. The new system includes also an automatic system of notification and reporting. These notifications are sent each time a change occurs in a reservation or in the system status, ensuring that all the communications are secure and execute by an automated procedure.
A dynamic Event Web site is generated for each event that Tourisme Montreal is responsible for. This dynamic Web site allows guests to make, modify or delete a reservation by themselves for a specific event. This site is a management tool that increase efficiency when a lot of events happen in the same time and is a simple platform for the meeting planner to brand and communicate well their event online. Each site contains detailed information about Montreal, what to do in the city while the event is held, the actual event and accommodation offers and services. The reservation process is in order secure and easy.
To do so, Diesel recommended upgrading its desktop and server operating systems to the Microsoft® Office System, Windows Server System™, Windows® XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2), and basing the infrastructure on the Microsoft .Net Framework.
Designing the Solution
“In a very short time frame, we needed to integrate our back-end systems, desktops and customer-facing applications to provide visitors, especially those registering for the Outgames 2006, with consistent, stable and seamless access to information and the ability to book accommodations online,” says Yanick Bédard, IT advisor of Tourisme Montréal.
Diesel Marketing began building the solution for Tourisme Montréal on the Microsoft .NET Framework. “We had 12 months before registration opened for the Outgames and attendees would begin to look for ways to arrange their housing,” says Martin Gauthier, vice-president, Diesel Marketing. “Using the .Net Framework, we were able to deploy the solution very quickly, and easily add on other components as needed, including SharePoint, InfoPath 2003 and BizTalk Server.”
Laying the foundation
To create a more secure and stable system that would support the Microsoft Office System solution, Tourisme Montréal upgraded its Windows desktop and server environment to Windows XP with SP2 Professional Edition and Windows Server 2003.
“We needed a solid, up-to-date technology backbone that would allow us to create a workflow that was functional both for tourists and our staff,” says Yanick Bédard, IT Advisor, Tourisme Montréal. “The Windows platform allows us to easily integrate with the industry-leading solutions from Microsoft we need to be competitive and productive.”
External Design
Using ASP.Net, Diesel helped the organization implement Windows SharePoint™ Services to provide an integrated look and feel to all the information available for visitors through Tourisme Montréal.
“Tourists visiting our Web site have varying interests, and want to learn about specific parts of the city that match their leisure activities. We needed a way to bring together information that was tailored to a specific event or group without a lot of IT administration involvement. A Custom CMS (Content Management System based on Windows SharePoint Web Parts) allowed us to quickly customize the way Montréal is presented to potential visitors,” says Yanick Bédard, IT Advisor, Tourisme Montréal.
The housing management system console is hosted on top of Windows SharePoint Services that allows Tourisme Montréal to manage the housing process by enabling booking agents to create events, accommodations, housing centrals, accommodation blocks, reservations, guest lists and notifications.
In addition, by applying the SOA (service-oriented architecture) principals (based on BizTalk® Server) to implement the housing solution Tourisme Montréal enabled application integration using a Web services approach and BizTalk connectors.
Business Benefits
Upgrading its desktop and server IT environments has enabled Tourisme Montréal’s staff to collaborate more easily and work more efficiently. “Windows SharePoint Services and the Windows platform provides us with a stable, secure and scalable environment, allowing us to work better so we can focus on promoting our city and responding to customer needs,” says Yanick Bédard, IT Advisor, Tourisme Montréal.
Showcasing the City
With Windows technology, Tourisme Montréal is able to present events to potential visitors and allow them to book their housing with ease.
The ability to integrate information from different sources with BizTalk Server and Windows SharePoint Services allows the organization to increase its service offers, and to enhance the Web site experience for users by decreasing search times with a one-stop booking process that combines speed, ease of use and security. In addition, using InfoPath 2003 to customize each form helps Tourisme Montréal create a flexible booking system that can accommodate event organizers and guest requirements.
By allowing staff to quickly create a Web site for every event that Tourisme Montréal is responsible for, promotions can be customized and areas of the city highlighted, depending on conference organizer requirements or target audience taste.
“Sports teams visiting Montréal typically have different requirements than individual travelers or those here on business. We now have the ability to respond to these needs quickly without adding extra work for our staff,” says Yanick Bédard, IT Advisor, Tourisme Montréal.
Increase in Staff Efficiency
Prior to implementing the SQL Reporting Services, SharePoint technologies and InfoPath 2003 solution, accommodation bookings were handled by an agent who needed to fax back a confirmation to the user. By offering its housing solution online and in real-time, the organization has streamlined its booking process, resulting in a 50 per cent increase in staff efficiency and a decrease in fax costs.
“For the Outgames 2006 alone we expect 16,000 participants, which would have translated into 24,000 faxes sent all over the world. We are now able to automate this process for the participants saving us considerable costs and time,” says Yanick Bédard, IT Advisor, Tourisme Montréal.
With the automatic notification available in Windows SharePoint Services and SQL reporting Services, an e-mail can be sent to the appropriate planners, users or hotels when a change occurs in a reservation or in the system status. This site helps alleviate staff workloads by managing the different events automatically.
Making a reservation
By accessing a Housing management console based on Windows SharePoint Services and filling out an InfoPath 2003-based form, booking agents can make easily and rapidly a reservation for a guest by specific dates and verify availability and confirm the process completion. By the same way guests can make a reservation online for a specific event; learn about Montréal; and find information about the event and accommodations by accessing the event web site. Using Microsoft SQL Reporting Services, Tourisme Montréal is able to pull reports for event organizers and accommodations faster and with more accuracy, and manipulate them with Word 2003 or Excel 2003.
This streamlined Web process increases the overall value Tourisme Montréal brings to event organizers and tourists, while making the organization’s staff more efficient so they can concentrate on promoting their city to the world.
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For More Information
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For more information about Diesel Marketing products and services, call (514) 282-2200 or visit the Web site at: www.dieselmarketing.com
For more information about Tourisme Montréal products and services, call (514) 844-5400 or visit the Web site at: www.tourisme-montreal.org
