Case Study

The digital realm changes tour

Oracle Cloud to support Boscolo’s new web portals for consumer sales.

Tourism and the digital realm: a winning combination

In recent years Boscolo, a well-known Italian tour operator with over 9,000 agencies across the national territory, has concentrated the development of its market based on the adoption of an omnichannel strategy, selling not only through travel agencies, but also directly to the consumer. In fact, thanks to the latest technologies, customers have changed the way they interface with the sales process.

Although the sales process in the travel world has a much more complex back office compared to that of physical products, due to the services associated with this industry (types of hotel room, extensions, excursions, insurance, etc.), the consumer nevertheless wants to be able to access products wherever they are and whenever they prefer.

In order to position themselves within a scenario characterised by extensive business growth potential Boscolo Tours decided to invest in a Digital Transformation project.

The benefits of digitalisation

The key aspects that drove Boscolo Tours to search for new technological solutions and initiate the Digital Transformation process are as follows:

  • Openness to the multichannel approach, with the addition of direct sales to the consumer alongside the classic sales model through travel agencies

  • Use of purchase channels that are differentiated by country, with localised web portals and dedicated customer service

  • Marketing automation in order to make it possible to target marketing and business choices directly across the Boscolo user base, no longer consisting only of travel agencies, but also of end consumers

  • Revamping of an appealing and fully-responsive front-end, capable of adapting to various navigation devices

  • Automation of certain key processes, such as travel document production and the creation of advertising materials

  • High performance and high reliability of the infrastructure

The value of migration to Oracle Public Cloud

Technology Reply has partnered with the customer and supported them in the creation of web portals based on the Oracle Public Cloud, in particular Database Cloud, Oracle WebCenter Sites as the CMS solution, Oracle Integration Cloud as the services management solution and Oracle Storage as a Cloud storage area.

The Oracle IaaS solution

Being fully aware that the success of companies in the digital age is strongly driven by their organisational agility, Boscolo Tours has chosen Technology Reply to carry out its Digital Transformation project, with actions aimed at renewing and modernising the technologies used, to guarantee a high degree of reliability and the evolution of the travel sales platform. Another key objective was to expand the audience of end users and guide them along an emotive, simplified and consistent navigation on different devices, thanks to a renewed user experience and an engaging user interface. The heart of the project was the migration to an Oracle IaaS solution aimed at enabling better infrastructure management and maintenance of products used, as well as a technological renewal in support of Boscolo’s web portals.

The cloud management

Starting from a solid and well-structured back office, Technology Reply collaborated with the customer in redefining the service layer on Oracle Integration Cloud, with a phased implementation of completely new features, as well as the re-engineering of existing functionality. This was further complemented by the cloud management of Boscolo’s portals, in particular the Boscolo Viaggi web portals, available in Italian, English and French, as well as the reserved area.

Oracle WebCenter Sites

The project saw the implementation of solutions in Oracle WebCenter Sites and through Oracle Integration Cloud, which leverage the potential of the products. Where possible, the approach adopted also saw the renewal and replacement of custom processes and solutions, limited in terms of evolution, maintenance and scalability.

The advantages of the solution

Thanks in large part to the dynamism of the data model, the solution implemented facilitates the availability of a tool that guarantees the full autonomy of content editors in configuring, modifying and publishing the web portal content (including in several languages).

The solution was further complemented by the high integrability achieved between Oracle WebCenter Sites content and business data when displaying specific information in a reserved area or in generating dynamic PDF documentation. This was also the case in the purchase funnel, which consists of a Single Page Application that consumes data returned from backend services and displays the CMS contents.

The adoption of the Oracle Integration Cloud supported by the Oracle Storage Cloud, has also enabled the complete re-engineering of back end services thanks to automated and correctly configured processes that enable extremely complex operations to be carried out between different systems. The new Boscolo website created with this model and available in different languages based on the specific country, enables Boscolo to have a point of entry to its online booking world for the various consumer segments, thanks to a consistent, emotive and extremely functional cross-channel navigation. Indeed, the appealing and responsive front end allows consumers to retrieve, in a clear and intuitive way, all the necessary information relating to a trip and to complete the booking and purchase thanks to a funnel model configured to run as a wizard.

Full autonomy of content editors in configuring, modifying and publishing the web portal content

The high integrability achieved between Oracle WebCenter Sites content and business data

The complete re-engineering of back end services thanks to automated and correctly configured processes

Consistent, emotive and extremely functional cross-channel navigation

Founded in 1978, Boscolo Tours S.p.A. is an Italian Tour Operator company based in Padua. The company offers its customers unique and unforgettable travel experiences characterised by a highly flexible configurability for each trip, in order to meet all requirements. Boscolo Tours offers guided trips, tailored itineraries and Boscolo Gift boxes with destinations all round the world.

Technology Reply is the Reply Group company that specialises in the design and implementation of innovative solutions based on the latest Oracle technologies. Thanks to its in-depth expertise and experience gained in over 20 years of business activity, Technology Reply supports its customers in their processes of innovation and digital transformation, with a team of professionals who are able to step in and provide support at all stages of the project life cycle: analysis, design, implementation, go-live and operation. Technology Reply serves as a reference partner for the various on-premise and cloud-based Oracle technologies: Big Data, Analytics, eCommerce, Mobile, Identity and Access Management, as well as Content Management. Supported by its agile culture, Technology Reply is becoming a leader of emerging technologies, implementing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning infrastructures, DevOps-based microservices and cognitive technology projects for a wide range of needs, industries and customers.