Hogia Continues Expansion

The Algerian ferry company Entreprise Nationale de Transport Maritime de Voyageurs (ENTMV), operating traffic between Europe and Algeria under the brand Algérie Ferries, is going to replace its in-house developed booking system, which has come to the end of its road. The ENTMV has chosen the BOOKIT system delivered by Hogia Ferry Systems to replace the old system and to enhance the company's distribution. With the ENTMV (Algérie Ferries) as its latest customer in North Africa, Hogia Ferry Systems continues to strengthen its foothold on the Mediterranean market. Today Hogia Ferry Systems supplies booking systems for several ferry companies operating in the region. Algérie Ferries maintains ferry services on several routes across the Western Mediterranean, as well between Algeria and France as between Tunisia and Spain. Its fleet includes three modern ferries, the El Djazair II, Tassili II and Tariq Ibn Ziyad, which were built in 2005, 2004 and 1995 respectively. In addition to that the capacity is boosted during the peak season with two chartered vessels. The passenger volumes are season-oriented with peaks during the start and the end of the Central European summer holiday season—the first half of August and the first half of September. During these summer season peaks the bulk of the passengers are Algerians who work in Europe and visit their home country during their vacation. The national Algerian ferry company decided to replace its old system with BOOKIT as the company needed more flexibility and state-of-the-art online distribution features. The solutions incorporated in BOOKIT were by far regarded as the most suitable and flexible ones, fulfilling the company's requirements on its next-generation booking system. "Our major challenges when serving a customer like Algérie Ferries are the rather advanced routines regarding tickets and agency reconciliation," informs Mr. John Bertell, Sales Manager at Hogia Ferry Systems. "The majority of the sales are distributed through travel agents and therefore advanced online distribution is of utmost importance. For example interface to the global distribution system Amadeus is a must, but so is also the automatic direct bank debit function for travel agents." As the sales consist of passengers, cabins and passenger cars, the procedure is made even more complex as possible changes of booking data are mainly handled by travel agents. But the changes are not necessarily directed to the same agent who has originally made the booking. "Therefore it is impossible to manage the information flow in the whole process without a reliable booking system, especially as it must be recorded which travel agent gets what commission on what part of a final ticket," continues Mr. Bertell.