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Ski, Sun, Family Fun and Open Source

Download the Mark Warner case study .pdf

“The web had to become a more strategic sales channel for the business, and we wanted one thing:  total control.  We wanted to grow our web-based revenues, and we wanted a site that didn’t leave us beholden to a single vendor or technology platform.”  Nigel Ragg, Head of Marketing, Mark Warner.

The Company – Mark Warner, one of the UK’s largest independent travel companies

The independent travel company Mark Warner has been providing ski and beach resort holidays to the UK market for over 30 years.  During this time it has won widespread recognition from across the travel industry as a leader and innovator, including the Daily Telegraph’s ‘Best Ski Company’ award in consecutive years for 2003 and 2004; and Maison de la France’s award for ‘Best Independent Ski Operator’ in 2004. 

The company prides itself as a leader in the UK’s all-inclusive holiday resort market.  It also enjoys outstanding loyalty from its customers, who each year trust Mark Warner to deliver unique holidays to summer beach destinations across Europe and five-star winter sun locations such as Egypt and Sri Lanka; as well as leading ski destinations in France, Italy and Austria….so much so, in fact, that repeat bookings and referrals are consistently made by over 75% of all customers!

The Challenge – control!

Mark Warner approached Squiz in September 2003 with a broad challenge:

“At that time we knew the web had to become a more strategic sales channel for the business, and we wanted one thing:  total control,” says Mark Warner’s Head of Marketing, Nigel Ragg.  “We wanted to grow our web-based revenues, and we wanted a site that didn’t leave us beholden to a single vendor or technology platform.”
 
In addition, the company wanted to create a flexible infrastructure to extend the value of the web throughout its business – from HR to holiday financing. 

It also wanted to control day-to-day maintenance and updating of the site.  And, having already invested thousands of pounds in previous site versions, they wanted a new strategy that gave them better financial control and ownership of the overall system.

The Solution – open source software and MySource Matrix

“Squiz gave us the answer in the form of open source software,” says Ragg.  “As a development platform, open source software means we control our own destiny in a way that seemed impossible before.”

“Because we’d own the web site - without licence fees - and because the open source development community is so vast, we knew we could think long term.  Also, this meant that if our supplier relationships should fail for any reason, then we’d still enjoy continuity.  Open source means we own it and we can develop it ourselves with partners that we choose.”

To meet the challenge, Squiz brought its enterprise-class open source Content Management System (CMS), MySource Matrix to the table. 

Unlike normal open source solutions, a commercial company, Squiz, leads the development of the MySource project.  Since 1998, Squiz has grown to become a global company with offices in Sydney and London, and MySource has become one of the world's leading open source CMS platforms, in use in hundreds of market-leading organisations across the world - such as Future Publishing, Oxford University, Amnesty International and The Australian Federal Government.

MySource Matrix gave Mark Warner a stable and controllable platform upon which to base its development.  Unlike a community-developed CMS, it provides the backing of a professional services team to those who need it and a deep reserve of support functions - ranging from far-reaching SLA’s, to 24x7 online support and access to Squiz developers.

The Squiz Approach – ownership!

“We had total confidence in Squiz’s ability to get the job done.  They have a refreshing straight talking approach, and immediately we knew how and where our money was being spent.”

“We knew that Mark Warner was moving from a difficult position where they owned nothing and no systems or metrics were in place to help them drive revenue from e-commerce,” says Steve Morgan, Director of Squiz UK.  “We needed to help them get control of their web strategy and so MySource was a natural fit.”

“Knowing their plan and their ambitions, we were able to help put in place a long term development plan that would see the web contribute directly to their overall business goals – at their own pace and at a great price point.”

The Squiz approach fitted Mark Warner’s brief perfectly.  A straight forward migration plan has pushed them on, and a transparent professional services fee model has enabled them to get a strong hold on their web development spend.  As Ragg explains:  “We had total confidence in Squiz’s ability to get the job done.  They have a refreshing straight talking approach, and immediately we knew how and where our money was being spent.”

In April 2004, Mark Warner launched phase one of its new MySource site.  With the CMS in place, the company was able to author and publish content on a day-to-day basis via the CMS’ easy to use backoffice administration console.  But this was just the beginning of a far more ambitious plan…

The Results – new sales volumes and a new e-commerce application

50% of sales call volumes are now driven directly via the web;
Traffic from major search engines such as Google has increased by 400%

Once the new site had been established as a success - with 50% of sales call volumes being driven directly via the web, and traffic from major search engines such as Google increasing 400% thanks to Squiz’s Search Engine Optimisation plan (…for example, Google users searching for “summer holiday” are now presented with Mark Warner as the top ranked listing!) – Squiz began to help Mark Warner make the important move into e-commerce.

In early 2005, Squiz started an important part of the development phase – fully integrating Mark Warner’s itour reservation system from Blue Sky into a new MySource CMS e-commerce module.  This would allow site users to book holidays directly via the site and to make and confirm a variety of other important activity reservations as part of a seamless online booking process.
 
At this point, the benefits of an open source development model really began to pay.  With the underlying system built, Mark Warner was able to tap into a network of other commercial organisations who were also using MySource, and develop new applications at improved speeds and radically reduced costs.

Squiz was able to generate third party support from other commercial organizations for the development of the new MySource / itour integration module.  With a common software requirement in place, a group of companies – brought together by Squiz - co-funded the necessary development work.

As a result, phase two of the Mark Warner plan was implemented in record timescales, and Squiz is now able to provide the new itour online booking system to other travel retailers.  The 'win-win' effect of this shared development model is that product development happens quickly and cost-effectively, in a way that has been unthinkable in the world of commercial software until now.

At the same time, a new HR site was introduced to help Mark Warner recruit the 1,500 staff per year it requires to run its holiday locations.  This new application allows the company to recruit new employees faster and at a far lower cost than before - channeling job applications quickly and directly to the right member of staff in the right location. 

The Future – more control, more growth, more sales!

“We want to generate 25% of our booking overall revenue direct from the site…and I’m confident we’ll get there.”

Looking ahead, with phase two now live, e-commerce is set to become a major revenue stream for Mark Warner.

“Winter 2005 will be a big moment for our new e-commerce strategy as we increase our inventory of ski deals,” says Ragg.  “Looking forward to 2007, we want to generate 25% of our booking overall revenue direct from the site…and I’m confident we’ll get there.”

In the meantime, Squiz is continuing to improve the site to help Mark Warner reach its targets.  Average daily site visits are up by nearly 40% year on year in key seasons, and monthly traffic is up by 30%.
 
Next up is a new site redesign that will help the company improve its marketing outreach - with improved Search Engine Optimisation, better site accessibility (making it ‘double A’ w3c compliant), syndication of Mark Warner content to third party sites, and better content presentation to make key marketing messages stick.

“We’re excited by the progress that Mark Warner is making,” says Morgan.  “The open source route with MySource has been perfect for them.  They’ve come a long way in a short space of time and with extremely focused budgets.  With the help of a smart web marketing plan and a leading-edge e-commerce system, they’re now up there with the heavyweights in UK travel….and they’re well set to continue gaining market share.”