House of Travel(MIS100 2009)

Reports to: Group strategy director
Size of IS shop: 62

PCs: 1350
Mobile PCs: 300
Terminals: 200
Hand-held devices: 50
Total screens: 1900

Industry: Business management and scientific services
PC environment: Windows XP, Dell
Server environment: Dell; HP; Windows 2003, 2008
DBMS: SQL
Address: Level 1, 210 Oxford Terrace, Christchurch
Website: www.houseoftravel.co.nz
Key IS projects this year: Not disclosed.

As part of the plan for future growth, HOT is in the process of developing and implementing new IT systems throughout the group.

House of Travel (HOT) is New Zealand’s largest privately owned travel operator and employs in excess of 1500 people between New Zealand and Australia. With more than 85 branch sites, HOT has grown to now cover the length and breadth of New Zealand and has representation in every state of Australia.

As part of the plan for future growth, HOT is in the process of developing and implementing new IT systems throughout the group.

“In 2008 we successfully delivered several large projects that have enabled us to transact business at a lower cost. We also undertook a number of infrastructure projects including virtualisation of our datacentre, a hardware refresh of all PCs and laptops, and an upgrade of our WAN and network equipment,” says general manager IT operations David Veronese.

HOT also partnered with Revera in 2008 and now receives utility computing services for networking, storage and server virtualisation. Veronese says these services along with infrastructure upgrades, provide a solid foundation for the business and enable the IT team to focus on the delivery of innovative solutions and products.

The year ahead for HOT brings a focus on cost reduction and future initiatives, says Veronese.