Software Not Scenery New Zealand's Tourism Future

Software Not Scenery New Zealand's Tourism Future

Travel wholesaling company achieves first for NZ travel technology.

Christchurch, 23 April 2007. - ANZCRO, a company specialising in selling New Zealand travel to the international travel industry, is breaking new ground with a locally designed and developed computer system from Bootstrap IT.

"There are many travel systems out there but nothing like this, nothing that really meets the needs of selling New Zealand travel," says ANZCRO managing director Owen Eagles.

"New Zealand as a travel product is very complex," he says, "rather than the 'fly and flop' of resort-type destinations, the New Zealand experience is more about moving around the country enjoying the beauty and diversity."

ANZCRO, owned by Christchurch company Guthrey Holdings and headquartered in Queensland's Gold Coast, specialises in travel for the type of free independent travellers (FIT) Tourism New Zealand has identified as the country's primary target for tourism growth.

"These kind of travellers want more flexible, tailored itineraries than the package-type tourist so we have to maintain huge databases of suppliers."

The system built by Bootstrap manages ANZCRO's database of over 1000 suppliers, enabling them to automatically reserve and pay for everything from a rental car in Whangarei to a spot on the Speights Brewery Tour. Mr Eagles says it will deliver a better level of service to their travel agent customers.

"Software is the only way to manage this complexity effectively and profitably," he says.

Mr Eagles said the company had done a lot of thinking and a lot of work on the system before involving Bootstrap.

"It was a difficult project, which is critical to our company's future, and they have done a really good job. I am confident the system will take us through the next few years."

"Their personal qualities have been key - they are enthusiastic and focussed on getting the job done, they can explain the technology stuff simply and they've tried and succeeded in understanding our business."

Managing Director of Bootstrap IT, Terry Paddy, said the project has been a very exciting one to work on, "we are not a huge IT company but we pride ourselves on being practical people that get the job done for our clients."

The system, built using the Java J2EE platform and running on top of a PostgreSQL database, went live on 16 April 2007. The next phase of the project will be opening the system up directly to travel agents over the internet.

About ANZCRO

ANZCRO is an international travel wholesale company specialising in travel to New Zealand and the Pacific. They have 80 staff spread across their Gold Coast headquarters, and offices in Perth, UK, US and Christchurch.

www.anzcro.co.nz

About Bootstrap IT Bootstrap IT is a software development company based in Christchurch New Zealand. Since 1994 they have been helping their clients give IT problems the boot by providing practical, efficient software solutions. www.bootstrap.co.nz

ENDS

© Scoop Media