Virgin Holidays

Stuff we do for Virgin Holidays

• Integration with ATOP and Travelbox
• Integrated product & content management
• Special offer & promotion management
• Third-party content integration
• Coremetrics integration
• Bespoke analytics & reporting
• Information architecture & consultancy

• Usability prototyping
• Creative web design
• Booking flow optimisation
• Website infrastructure
• Agile software development
• 365 x 24 x 7 Support

Zolv understand the fast pace of travel and are agile, responsive and flexible

Chris Roe, Sales & Distribution Director, VH

Olly Wenn, founder of Travel technology specialist company Zolv, has had a business relationship with Virgin Holidays spanning an impressive 16 years. He developed the first interactive CD-ROM holiday brochure for Virgin Holidays and designed and built the first Virgin Holidays website in 1998. In 2002 Olly set up Zolv, bringing together a talented team of designers and developers. Virgin Holidays has remained with Zolv ever since, and is described by Virgin Holidays' Sales and Distribution Director, Chris Roe, as "having truly got under the skin of our business."

Highlights

Over the past ten years, the team at Zolv has provided ongoing design, development and support for the award-winning www.virginholidays.co.uk website and a number of its sister companies too. Zolv’s running brief has been one of continual improvement to both the public facing websites, and the tools and processes used by Virgin Holidays to manage an ever changing inventory of worldwide holiday products.

To allow Virgin Holidays to respond quickly to the opportunities presented by the fast-paced travel industry, Zolv has developed numerous tools that enable the rapid production of landing pages, special offers listings and promotional pods which have allowed the web team to respond both strategically and tactically to marketing cues.

In the last eight years alone Zolv has designed, built and delivered websites for all of Virgin Holidays’ associated brands, including:

• Frequent Virgin Club
• Travel City Direct
• Virgin Atlantic Travel Plus
• Virgin Holidays for Travel Agents
• Hip Hotels

Zolv has also undertaken three complete redesign and builds, including three different booking flows on three different reservation platforms for the main Virgin Holidays site. Each of these redesigns has improved usability and customer retention and has increased conversion rates by more than 25% each time.

Zolv have great tenacity... they very rarely say no, we can't

Chris Roe, Sales & Distribution Director, VH

How does it work?

Honest, regular communication is at the centre of what Zolv does. Clients employ the whole team and are encouraged to get to know the people working on their account. The success of Zolv’s ten year relationship with Virgin Holidays has come from transcending the traditional client/service provider model to develop an on-going partnership involving the entire business sharing objectives and information. At all stages of the development process clients have direct access to the individuals working on their site and can ask them anything, anytime.

"We have an excellent working relationship with the Zolv team - and not just at a senior level," says Chris Roe of Virgin Holidays. "They are always around to discuss ideas and it is genuine two-way communication. They challenge us, asking: ‘What if? Could we try it this way?’ and they always bring new ideas to the table."

There when it counts

In September 2008, Virgin Holidays added Travel City Direct, part of the failed XL Leisure group to its portfolio.

Roe says, "We are a fast-moving, dynamic organisation. We had to move very quickly to acquire the Travel City Direct brand and name, and once that was complete the next big challenge was to ensure the website was fully functional. The timeframes were incredibly tight, but Zolv raised their game as they always do and delivered in time for January."

From the confirmation of the acquisition, Zolv had 5 weeks to deliver a website in time for the key travel season - something that would usually require four to five months from start to finish. They delivered and Virgin Holidays has since been credited with reviving the Travel City Direct brand.

"If we had asked another company, they couldn't have done it, but Zolv have great tenacity. When we ask them to do something they very rarely say 'no, we can't'. In this instance, speed to market was of the essence and that is exactly what we got."

He continued, "Our business is constantly changing and evolving to react to the fast-moving travel environment. The Zolv team understand the fast pace of travel and are agile, responsive and above all, flexible. They are able to switch seamlessly between strategic projects and Business As Usual requests, applying the same care and attention to the detail as they do to the big projects."

Throughout 2009 the Zolv team responded to 1,014 BAU requests, ranging in diversity from the re-design of a promotional header campaign to the complete re-build of the booking flow on a reservation system. Demonstrating what Chris Roe describes as 'effective cross-functional working', these requests have come from Virgin Holidays' marketing department, sales, production, IT, 3rd party consultants, finance and even the board. That equates to five issues a day, delivered and completed. Five problems a day, solved.