UK-based global apartment reservations company, The Apartment Service, has teamed with Sapphire Group in order to provide real-time availability for its online booking service.
A new company website, due for completion in the fourth quarter 2007, will combine front and back office functionality with web-based distribution, allowing customers to search for an apartment and, for the first time, check real-time availability before booking.
Sapphire Group will also provide an inventory management function for high volume apartment owners, which automatically pulls information from existing reservation systems and updates availability via an XML feed. Low volume operators can manage inventory manually through The Apartment Service”s extranet.
Following completion of the online system later this year, The Apartment Service will begin implementing connections with GDS (global distribution system) companies in the first quarter 2008.
Sapphire Group operates predominantly in North America and Europe, with a unique onshore offshore business model that combines project management from one of its onshore offices, with development undertaken in offshore centres such as Russia.
”We needed a team with core database and web services skills,” said The Apartment Service project leader, Chris McCrow. ”By outsourcing development to Sapphire Group”s Russian team and maintaining day-to-day contact with Sapphire Group”s UK team, we gained the best of both worlds: the right skill set at the right cost.”