travel, hotel and booking Information

Jazeera Air taps into Nortel tech

Hotel Booking Jazeera Airways has implemented new sophisticated multimedia contact centre and interactive voice response (IVR) services based on Nortel solutions.

8mong many firsts for the group market, the new technology platform enables consumers to do something that other sites haven k allowed to book travel and accommodations for more than five rooms in a single online session. Featuring more than 56, 000 hotels, including 7, time group rates, Groople is primed to become the industry largest automated solution for unmanaged group leisure travel, a market estimated at $18 billion to $24 billion. Under its hosted inventory and commission models, Groople generates group bookings niche by niche for hotels and plans to add air, car, cruise, bus and rail later this year.

Travel Agency The services improve flight booking processes to customers by enabling them to contact Jazeera through telephone calls for faster resolution of enquiries and easier ticketing.

Groople In the News Groople Selected by Bizbash as Provider for Group Travel Bookings June 1, BiZBash, the preeminent resource for the event planning industry, today announces a partnership with Groople.com, making Groople the exclusive online group travel partner for BiZBash's thousands of event professionals. BiZBash users now have Groople's group travel tools, with the unique ability to research and make group travel arrangements online. While most travel booking sites don't allow for group reservations at all, through BiZBash, hotel bookings for 5 rooms or hundreds of rooms are now simple to book and include special group rates. With an initial offering of hotels, the service will expand to offer airfare, cruise, car and rail bookings online. free number ( 4316) is available for arranging air, cruise, car and rail, as well as more complicated hotel requests.

Cheap Hotel "Jazeera Airways strives to distinguish itself from its competitors through leading-edge technologies like our new contact centre application from Nortel," said Marwan Boodai, Chairman and CEO of Jazeera Airways. "Giving passengers full control over their travel plans is one way to achieve this goal. Traditionally, we have worked with the best vendors in the industry and brought leading-edge technologies to the Middle East to achieve the highest levels of customer satisfaction."

Groople (www.groople.com), the leading online group travel booking and planning site, has partnered with Hotel Hotline (www.hotelhotline.com), an online hotel reservation site including the properties HotelHotline.com and HotelsCheap.org. Groople provides Hotel Hotline customers with the ability to search for and book group hotels that are appropriate for their group type. Groople's private label solution offers Hotel Hotline with a customized booking solution that satisfies the needs of their users. "Partnering with Groople gives Hotel Hotline access to dependable group booking technology and professional group travel customer service, " said Mike Stacy, CEO of Groople. "HotelsCheap knows the size and growth of the group market and sees Groople as the best way to tap into that market"

Flight Booking "Nortel's past history of involvement in highly sophisticated projects in the region was one of the factors that affected our decision to go with a Nortel-based solution," said Boodai. "Obviously, our contact centre is at the heart and core of our business, so we needed a solution that works effectively but more importantly, will keep working without downtime that frustrates customers. We needed a vendor like Nortel that we could depend on and technology we knew would be reliable."

At any time, cancellations will be assessed a $50 Cancellation Fee per person (adults over the age of 12) plus any applicable hotel and airline cancellation penalties. A credit towards future travel will be issued for the balance remaining. New travel plans must be reserved and travel completed one (1) year from the original booking date and are subject to availability. Air travel must be booked with the original carrier and no refund or credit will be offered for reservations that result in a decrease in price. New travel must be reserved and completed within one (1) year from the original booking date. Upon rebooking, any increase in price for the land or airfare will be the responsibility of the customer. All reservations are subject to availability. Air travel must be booked with the original carrier and no refund or credit will be offered for reservations that result in a decrease in price. 100% penalty applies; not eligible for any future travel credit.

Travel Agent Middle East Telecommunication Company (METCO), Nortel's channel partner in Kuwait, built an integrated contact centre solution for Jazeera Airways that consolidates incoming calls to the airline to a universal queue and then routes them to the appropriate agent for fast, effective service. Jazeera's new contact centre enables travellers to book their flights via 'e-ticketing' at any time, offering a truly 24x7 service globally. As of today, travellers can book their destinations online or through a dedicated telephone number.

As the premier online booking resource for the $20+ billion leisure group travel market, Groople provides group rates and inventory, allowing consumers to easily plan, book and manage all group travel needs in a single setting. In addition to more than 60, 000 hotels and six major cruise lines, Groople also offers group bookings for air, car, bus and rail.

Hotel Chicago "Nortel's solution for Jazeera Airways extends our proven track record in deploying leading-edge solutions in the aviation industry," said Ramin Attari, vice president Middle East, Nortel. "We are helping Jazeera build a virtual enterprise by delivering flexible and improved services that will give them a competitive edge in their highly competitive business where customer satisfaction is everything."

Online Booking METCO implemented a complete integrated solution in less than two months. The solution included Nortel Communication Server 1000 IP Telephony solution, Nortel CallPilot Unified Messaging, Nortel Contact Center, Nortel Self-Service solution based on the Media Processing Server 500 platform and a converged LAN built around the Nortel Ethernet switches 470.

Travel Health Insurance The Nortel solution deployed at Jazeera Airways is one of a range of technology-based initiatives taken by the airline in order to bring innovative customer services to the market 24/7: others include initiatives with regional mobile network operators to support 'e-ticketing' over mobile handsets.

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