IHG-Case-study

Case study

UST Engineering helped global hotelier reduce customer service costs by 29%

Software engineering experts helped a global hospitality company transform its central booking system by deploying a modern web-based central reservation system and mobile applications. They accelerated development, automated testing, and enhanced security with a 63% productivity improvement.

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OUR CLIENT

With roots dating back decades, this multinational hospitality company has become one of the most prominent players in its market sector. The company employs over 300,000 people and generates over $3 billion in revenue annually.

THE CHALLENGE

Multinational hotel company needed to modernize its central booking system

The client's existing centralized reservation system needed an overhaul. The outdated user interface was cumbersome and not very intuitive. The legacy architecture created slow response times, and the lengthy page rendering timeframes contributed to a poor user experience. Given these issues, plus a need for better application security, the global hospitality company wanted a technology partner with extensive software engineering expertise to transform the reservation system.

THE TRANSFORMATION

Software engineering team migrated applications, streamlined development, enhanced user interface

The project team shifted the legacy reservation applications to a new Angular framework, an automated platform for building mobile and desktop web applications using CI/CD pipelines and orchestration. This strategy accelerated development cycles and reduced application response and page rendering timeframes. Rather than reinventing the wheel, the software engineering team integrated standard hospitality APIs from the Group Reservation System. To improve the user experience, the project team developed a mobile-responsive interface with intuitive workflows and Quiq text messaging capabilities, so consumers can more easily communicate with the company’s hotel properties.

To accelerate the testing of the new web and mobile applications, the project team implemented Docker containers to test suites across multiple environments simultaneously, and the team deployed REST service testing to automate guest API checks. With tokenization in place, the application was much more secure.

Finally, the software engineers established thorough processes for consistent technical and functional upgrades.

THE IMPACT

Leading hotel company transformed customer experience with modern reservation system

With the new modern central reservation system in place, the company quickly realized its customers liked the new intuitive web and mobile application. With a 99% uptime, zero security vulnerabilities, and fewer calls to customer service, costs dropped 29%. And now that 90% of system tests are automated, the development team reduced test cycles from 16 to six hours—a 63% productivity improvement. The multinational hotel company is well-positioned to expand into new markets.

RESOURCES

https://www.ust.com/en/ust-product-engineering/softwareproductengineering

https://www.ust.com/en/industries/tmt