Dortmund, Germany | protel hotelsoftware GmbH and their Greek partner Hospitality Integrated Technologies S.A. (HIT) have been commissioned with the implementation of an IT project that is truly unique in the world - namely the provision of a central reservation system (CRS) for the XXVIII Olympic and Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece. In August 2004, the Olympic Games return to their birthplace. Athletes from all over the world will be meeting up in Greece to test their strength in a true trial of physical ability. The 2004 Olympic Games in Athens combines history, culture and peace within sport. Some 10,500 athletes from 202 countries will be competing for medals. During this time, the region of Athens will accommodate some 46,000 athletes, judges, journalists, sponsors and members of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) in addition to innumerable spectators and guests. The Olympic village, accommodating the athletes, is the largest apartment project that Greece has ever seen. Described as the "largest hotel in the world", it will accommodate some 16,000 persons during the Games. The immense challenge of organising sufficient accommodation and associated services for 46,000 people is a highly complex task, which requires careful planning and cooperation between the organisers, the Greek government, the hotel industry and the private sector. Journalists and guests will be accommodated in 230 different hotels (including the Hilton, Intercontinental, Grecotel, Savoy), 8 media villages as well as in other smaller Olympic villages. Some 7 cruise liners, including the Queen Mary II, will be docked in the port of Piraeus in order to accommodate additional guests. This massive logistical operation requires central reservation technologies of exceptionally high reliability, to help organisers both control and co-ordinate accommodation requirements. After conducting intensive product comparisons, 'the Village Operations Department' opted for a software solution developed by protel hotelsoftware GmbH. Selected for reasons including the professionalism and experience of local partner HIT S.A , the functional sophistication and proven field reliability of the application technology, protel is truly proud to be providing its technology to assist manage this globally recognised event. In order to coordinate and administer the resource management tasks before and during the Olympic Games from a central location, the central solution 'protel for Headquarters' ("protel HQ") is being deployed. The Olympic Village, along with the eight media villages, are each equipped with a protel SQL front office system. To optimise the operations of the Olympic Village alone, there are 28 residence centres, where more than 150 reception employees, their departmental managers, 28 additional housekeeping managers and a plethora of chambermaids run the village, like a huge hotel. The protel installation consists of a total of over 175 workstations. Even the accommodation facilities in the 9 media villages, such as e.g. the campus of Athens University and the campus of the polytechnic college, are run as hotels during the games, supported by protel front office system. Training logistics are also impressive. Over 400 end-users will receive intensive training in how to use the protel solution. In addition to protel front office modules, protel Sales & Marketing and protel Banquet will also be used in the Olympic Village. This will allow the numerous appointments, activities and events of the individual teams to be organised in a simple and efficient manner. Individual protel front office systems in the villages are connected to the Athens 2004 Head Office, namely to the ‘central control room’ of the hospitality & accommodation department. protel HQ is used in this central control room to administer all the room availabilities in addition to the reservation and allocation of rooms for groups and persons travelling alone. Special guest requests, such as type of beds and requests for disabled facilities are taken into account here. An additional tool within the reservation function enables them to access the photos and floor plans of each and every apartment and each block of houses. An essential pre-requisite of the accommodation management of such vast numbers of people was the need to ensure that reservation staff can maintain a complete inventory overview at all times. Integrating the drafting of reservation agreements and matching of invoices, the administration of advance payments and accounts receivable was also a necessity. The protel application supported these requirements within the 1 integrated, end-to-end process flow. Prior to the arrival of the first guests, all the reservations are transmitted automatically to the individual protel front office systems in the Olympic Village and media villages. It is from here that front office functions such as Check-In / Check-Out, drafting of arrival / departure and guest lists, housekeeping, invoicing and numerous other tasks are performed. The central protel HQ system is also used to administer the availabilities of the four Olympic Hotels (Athens Hilton, Divani Caravel, Holiday Inn, Best Western Ilisia Hotel), in which the International Olympic Family is accommodated, along with the availabilities at the 230 other hotels and seven cruise liners. At the Athens 2004 Head Office, the reservations are received and the corresponding hotels allocated. A few weeks prior to the arrival of the first guests, the reservations and guest lists will be forwarded to the hotels and cruise liners. A special highlight of this truly unique project is also the web-based information system, which accesses the data of the protel HQ system. Upon their arrival, this Guest-Locator-Information-System shows the athletes and guests in which hotel they are accommodated and the quickest route there. Remote system terminals can also be found at Athens airport, at the port of Piraeus and at the International Press Centre, which guests can use to access corresponding information. The project is one that protel hotelsoftware GmbH and HIT S.A are both very proud to be associated.
protel hotel software GmbH with its headquarters in Dortmund / Germany supports more than 2.200 installations in 30 countries and is one of the leading suppliers of hotel software, offering a complete portfolio of business applications from Front Office to Banquet Administration, Sales & Marketing and Internet and GDS reservations for individual hotels and hotel chains.
protel's customers include Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts (CH), the Paramount Group of Hotels (UK), the largest chain in Greece ´Grecotel`, the largest chain in Austria ´Austria Trend Hotels & Resorts`, other ´Leading Hotels of the world` like Badrutt`s Palace Hotel or the Suvretta House ( both in St Moritz, Switzerland), the ROBINSON Club Cala Serena (Spain) as well as important companies in the industry sector like Deutsche Post Worldnet AG, Bayer AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Vodafone and many more.
Contact
Birgit Silberberg
Phone: +49 (231) 915 93 0
Fax: +49 (231) 915 93 999
Email: sales@protel-net.com
Organization
protel hotelsoftware GmbH
www.protel.net/
Europaplatz 8
Dortmund, 44269
Germany
Phone: 49 (231) 915 93 0
Email: press@protel.net
Recent News
 Advent International and Eurazeo complete the acquisition of protel Hotelsoftware GmbH, a leading software hospitality solutions business |
|
protel and Eynav partner up to Bring Next Gen. Hospitality Technology to the Israeli Market |
|
IDeaS and protel go Hand-in-Hand Like Profitability and Efficiency as an Impressive 100-Integrations Milestone is Achieved |
