Case Study

Pestana Priority Guest

Create IT builds Internet Portal for the Customer Loyalty Program of Pestana Group
About the Client

The Pestana Group, with more than 45 years of experience, has developed throughout it's history it's main activity in the tourism sector. With diversified presence in various areas, is the portuguese leader in the area of tourism and leisure. The group currently manages more than 90 units, between hotels and inns, spread across 15 countries, as well as 6 Golf courses and several tourist resorts. This portfolio was built based on strict principles of sustainability, adding value and preserving resources for future generations.

Key numbers

7,000
dedicated professionals
10,500
rooms
3 million
guests per year
The Challenge

Pestana Group intended to launch its new customer loyalty program,Pestana Priority Guest, in conjunction with an Internet portal to support the program and focused on its loyal customers. The ease-of-use and agility in content management and promotional campaigns were critical

The ease-of-use and agility in content management and promotional campaigns were critical factors since the goal was to unify in a single Portal and loyalty program the two hotel brands of the Group (Pestana Hotels & ResortsandPousadas de Portugal). Together these brands manage 86 hotel units and over 9000 rooms worldwide.

The need to offer Pestana Priority Guest clients a set of services such as consulting their points statement, updating their customer profile or the possibility of making reservations using points accumulated on their loyalty card, required an integration of the Portal with other Pestana Group information systems, making the challenge even more interesting.

The Solution

The Pestana Group decided to entrust Create IT with the responsibility for implementing the project, following the previous joint work, with particular emphasis on the Pousadas de Portugal Portal. The new portal was designed by BY.

The use of Microsoft Sharepoint Server 2010 as a technological basis for the internet portal has enabled Create IT to address all the existing implementation challenges not only because of its extreme flexibility and ease of use, but also because of its unique interoperability capabilities.
These capabilities have made it easy to integrate the portal with other systems such as Microsoft Dynamics CRMOpera Reservation System and Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010.

By using Microsoft SharePoint 2010, it was also possible to integrate part of the existing portal features in the intranet of Pestana Group, so that hotel reception desk operators and other support staff can also use these functionalities.

The Results

According to Ambitur news, Pestana Group intends, with this new loyalty program, to raise between 100 and 150 thousand customers in the first year of launch, 40% of which are Portuguese, 40% are from the Brazilian market and the remaining 20% are from other nationalities. In combination with the new versions of the Pousadas de Portugal and Pestana Hotels & Resorts portals, the Group expects to generate revenues of 15 million euros.