Introduction: Innovative power :

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1 Introduction: The neutral booking and advisory platform for cruises, CRUISEA, was developed by the holding company CRUISEHOST.net especially for the application in the travel agency and therefore in accordance with the requirements of travel agents to ensure an extremely efficient sale of cruise holidays. Via CRUISEA travel agents access more than ship departures of 44 shipping companies globally and are able to search, compare and book these cruises quickly and easily. The system shows all the shipping companies and cruise ships in the same structure. Full descriptions of ship details, of cabins with nice photographic material, route information and vacancy lists are available. Furthermore, geographical maps based on Google Maps show all ports for each selected route and make it possible to zoom in very exact port views together withthepier, sothat it canbeseenat aglancewheretherespectiveshipwill berth. LivesinceJanuary 2015, this informationtool is aninteresting support for theadvisory.themainfocusofcruisealies onthequalityandtimelinessofdata.cruiseacallsupthedataveryfast onlineandinreal-timeat theshippingcompanies to show the travel agencies and their clients the latest assured vacancies and prices. At the same time a booking option at the shipping company will be made by selecting the exact cabin number. Innovative power : TheaimofCRUISEAistoshowallcruiseproductsavailableonthemarketonasingleplatforminatransparentwayfortravelagenciesandtoenablethebookingofthese products. Due to the scope of service and the product volume, CRUISEA considerably accelerates the advisory and sale process at the counter and contributes to an improvement in efficiency to a large extent, because only a small number of cruise shipping companies are available in the common shopping and booking systems. However, the use of CRUISEA is significantly time-saving, because all relevant offers of the market are retrieved and compared with just one entry. The high transparency and the excellent user-friendliness are further features of the system, so that CRUISEA particularly supports the travel agents who sell cruises and additionally increases their advisory skills. If required, the innovative CRUISEA MAP search makes it possible for the travel agents to search quickly and simply for different alternatives for theirclients alternativeswhichwouldnotbeconsideredincaseofausuallistview,becausesuchproductsarenotedatthebottom ofthelist. Another advantage of the application of CRUISEA: the system also shows the corresponding package deals of tour operators and cruise shipping companies parallel to the single cruise deals, which ensures that travel agents obtain a maximum transparency of all relevant offers of the market.

2 Relevance for the market : Long gone are the days when cruises were a niche product. They are now an important part of the sale of touristic services. But so far there wasn t a platform which provided the travel agencies a full overview of the market and the possibility to book the products for their clients. That s the reason why the successful cruisesalewasanexclusiveissueoftheexpertsofthemarketforalongtime. The growth of the cruise segment was boosted to a large extent by travel portals which acquired the appropriate know-how and developed solutions for end users.astherewasn tsuchacompletesystem for travelagencies,manytravelagentsas wellas endusers usedthesetravelportals fortheirsearchtorealizea booking request via another system afterwards. The great benefit of CRUISEA is that there is finally a full expert system which includes innovative search options and which helps the travel agencies not only to achieve the same level as the travel portals but also allows them an even more sound and successful advisory. Hence, CRUISEA does not only increase the efficiency of the booking process, in the long term it also contributes to the profitability of the travel agency, because clients who enjoy a perfect advice often come back again to their travel agency as regular customers. Company : CRUISEHOST.net GmbH is a company of the CruisePool GmbH & Co KG. Since 2002 the CruisePool GmbH & Co. KG operates on the market as one of the biggest online providers of sea, river and sailing cruises with global travel routes. Besides CRUISEC which was developed for the end user, we additionally created CRUISEA for the specialized agency. The data base is currently accessible for many sales partners both nationally and internationally in 14 languages with 25 currencies and linkedtonumerous websitesandonlineportals for theusagebyendusers. At themoment CRUISEAis themost important product andenlarges our client base by gaining key accounts, travel agency chains and cooperation partners. Today CRUISEHOST is connected with all important sales partners at home and abroad. Further important linkages to all mid- and back-office as well as GDS systems come into being. By the consistent further development of our cruise sales tools the direct seller of cruises evolved into a technology company. CRUISEA today is in operation at the members of the Schmetterling cooperation; in Germany it is in use at Thomas Cook Germany with the distribution channels Neckermann alpha and Holiday Land as well as in Austria at the Restplatzbörse and Kuoni.

3 Search criteria are always shown and can be changed at any time Search results as a list (SEARCH) or grouped on a geographical map (MAP) with further zoom stage

4 Examples for the zoom stages and the clear structure of the presentation. In case of a search without indicating the duration of the cruise, prices are shown in a list view from 85,- North America West Coast to 3369,- Galapagos. In the list view the user would obtain pages of information in this case. By scrolling the mouse wheel the user can zoom in the individual regions, identify the ports of departure as well as obtain additional information with regard to the deals. If the concentration of ports of departure is high, the user can zoom in deeper to separate the ports

5 By clicking on the port of departure the user accesses the list view and there he can see all details of the cruise and the ship as usual and activate a booking or rather go back to the map view. Cruise details

6 Availability Check for Categories Availability Check for Cabins

7 Passenger details The usercangoback toanypageat anytime andalso changethesearch criteria if required.

8 Watch List withpdf attachmentsofall cruisesin yourwatchlist

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