Thomas Cook in £20m reservation system deal

Thomas Cook is to overhaul its entire on and offline reservation system, following the signing of a £20 million contract with technology provider BlueSky Travel Systems. The project – called Globe – is expected to take two years to implement across the Thomas Cook business and follows a competitive pitch involving BlueSky and other undisclosed…

Thomas Cook is to overhaul its entire on and offline reservation system, following the signing of a £20 million contract with technology provider BlueSky Travel Systems.

The project – called Globe – is expected to take two years to implement across the Thomas Cook business and follows a competitive pitch involving BlueSky and other undisclosed technology firms.

BleuSky will install the new system across the Thomas Cook brand, including 3,600 travel agencies around the world, website and call centres.

The ITour system will include package holidays, dynamic packaging and individual components.

BlueSky managing director Stephen Driscoll said: “Winning this contract is the culmination of our vision to create a ‘new world’ tour operator reservation system to support both new and existing business models.

“Thomas Cook has recognised the superiority of our technology and its flexibility enabling them to take their business to the next generation.”

The company is also handles technology for First Choice, Stein Travel and Mark Warner Holidays.

Thomas Cook AG chief information officer, Reinhard Eschbach, said: “Consumer demand dictates we must offer new types of holidays, product and services in an efficient manner and the only way to do that was to develop a new pan European reservation system.”

“The new solution will enable us to align our production processes more closely to our customers’ evolving booking behaviour and allow us to distribute our product how and where we want to and through as many channels as we choose.”