Vail resorts: top resort destination upgrades technology to improve vacations.

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Whether their guests plan to hit the slopes or that perfect tee shot, Vail Resorts leverages technology in order to provide a positive experience before guests even reach their travel destination. Hosted systems and a web presence for booking lodging, air and ground transportation, and activities work to enhance the customer experience.

In its efforts to provide a seamless "one-stop shopping service" to increase destination visitors and to increase revenue spent by guests, Vail Resorts saw the need to replace obsolete technology that was not meeting the needs of reservation agents.

As a Microsoft shop, Vail Resorts chose Interlink as a partner because of its status as a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. "Interlink's proposal, methodology, project management skills, and references were unbeatable," said Susan Rubin-Stewart, director of reservations and travel.

Vail Resorts and Interlink developed Air Link, a new air reservation system that allows agents to book air travel for guests on every major airline. 80 reservation agents are trained to use Air Link and they book with every domestic airline at every city in the United States.

Previously, an agent was limited to shopping one class of service for one airline at a time. Based on Microsoft .NET technologies, Air Link allows an agent to have access to all airlines and classes of service to efficiently offer the client price comparisons and availability options. "It's all about access and getting people here. This is the only project I've seen that the end-user acceptance was immediate. There was a high level of excitement and anticipation from the users," said Rubin-Stewart.

Air Link has been quite successful and allows Vail Resorts to be much more competitive with online travel sites. Vail saw an air sales increase of 42% the first three weeks that the system was up and running. Vail Resorts looks forward to the flexibility of the new program as they look to replace other outdated systems.

Vail Resorts was particularly impressed...