Harvey World Travel Case Study


Overview

In the fast paced and ever changing travel industry, customers rely on travel agents to provide them with up-to-the-minute travel and ticketing information and services. As a leading Australian franchise, Harvey World Travel needed a new intranet platform to ensure it could communicate quickly and easily with its 330-strong national franchise network. It selected iD Franchise for its intranet solution which they rolled out nationally. Harvey World Travel agents across the country now use iD as their first point of call for all the information and collateral they need to manage their franchises successfully.

Client profile

Harvey World Travel is a leading national franchise network and one of the longest established retail travel agency groups in Australia. It has some 270 franchisees operating from over 330 travel agencies throughout Australia, as well as operations in South Africa and New Zealand. The Harvey World Travel brand promise is to provide customers with unparalleled professionalism and value through its highly trained staff and their extensive knowledge of all aspects of travel.

Harvey World Travel is owned by Stella Travel Group, the largest integrated travel network in Australasia with a worldwide network of more than 2,500 retail agencies in 4 countries.

Communications challenge

When Harvey World Travel was integrated into the now Stella Travel Group, the timing was right to refresh the network’s intranet. Harvey World Travel’s existing intranet had been built in-house using customised software. It required a dedicated IT developer on staff to look after its complex upgrade and maintenance requirements. The company wanted to move away from a custom intranet to an off-the-shelf solution which would be simpler to manage and update. It made sense to cease spending time and money developing its in-house CMS and migrate Harvey World Travel to the same intranet platform the rest of the company was using iD Franchise.

“We wanted to get away from the complexity of upgrading and maintaining a custom CMS,” said Stella Travel Group Online Communications Executive.

Along with the efficiencies gained from being able to leverage training and information across the organisation, standardising on the iD platform had an added advantage because it meant the company could easily provide Harvey World Travel franchisees with product information and updates from preferred wholesale suppliers within the Stella Travel Group.

Solution design and deployment

Harvey World Travel needed to ensure its franchise partners had fast and easy access to all the information they needed to successfully manage their franchises, including operational and technical information.

Harvey World Travel began to migrate across to the iD intranet platform in late 2007. It was designed as the first port of call for franchisees, providing a range of information and documents including:
  • Important news and incentives from the company and industry suppliers
  • Video broadcasts from the Managing Director
  • Weekly advertising information – press ads, TV & catalogues
  • Marketing information and collateral including posters, logos & guidelines
  • Franchise operations manual
  • Travel industry news from content partners including Travel Today
Results to date

Harvey World Travel has now been standardised on iD for over 18 months, and the intranet has continued to be the first port of call for franchisees across the national network.

“Whether it’s a new product or service offering to customers, a new incentive scheme or updates to IT systems, iD is the primary communication tool we use to provide information from head office to franchisees."


The iD Franchise intranet has also become a valuable shared resource for Harvey World Travel’s agents. Agents can easily upload travel reports each time they return from an educational trip, sharing their personal up-to-the minute travel tips and recommendations with all agents in the Harvey World Travel network. Agents also use the intranet to interact online through the notice boards area for posting job ads, travelling companion notices and items for sale.

iD Franchise – a smart choice for franchise communications

Centralising its franchisee communications on iD has helped Harvey World Travel to achieve noticeable improvements in its franchise communications, says Jimenez. Using iD Franchise, the company has been able to provide a “one stop shop” for franchisees to receive business and operational support.

“Franchisees can suffer from a bit of information overload. By centralising on an easy to use intranet platform like iD, we’re now able to give our franchisees easier access to information, communicate with them in a more timely manner and deliver vital information including video broadcasts from the Harvey World Travel Managing Director”

The move to an out-of-the-box intranet solution made sense from a financial point of view as well, says Stella Travel Group Online Communications Executive. “It’s really freed up our IT resources. They’ve now been able to focus on software development for other parts of the business.”

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