Robinson Club GmbH

The Company

The Hanover-based Robinson Club GmbH, a member of the TUI Group, is Germany's market leader in the premium segment for club-based vacations. At the present time, its portfolio includes 23 Club facilities and one townhouse, spread across eleven countries with a total bednight capacity of 12,600.

About 40 years ago, Robinson laid the foundation for an entirely new kind of vacation: a quality offering that placed much greater emphasis on the individuality of its guests. By pursuing a consistent brand strategy and through continuous quality improvement, Robinson has exerted a decisive influence on the concept of club-based holidays and has secured itself a substantial competitive edge over all the other providers in this field.

The Challenge

In the context of introducing new hotel software and through a rolling programme of upgrades to the full extent of IT systems, a need arose to optimize the entire range of planning and reporting processes. Core elements in this optimization process included a clear definition of the information required, and the procurement of a technology platform capable on the one hand of conducting flexible, multidimensional OLAP analyses and, on the other hand, of delivering standard reporting facilities.

Alongside pure analysis work, the platform needed to be configured in such a way as to provide effective support to the optimized planning processes and functions. The previous planning and reporting system was characterized by the need for a high level of data collation and pre-processing. SDG consulting AG, a long-term partner of Board, was on hand to assist the company with the implementation of the project. 

The Board Solution 

The first step towards optimization was to conduct a detailed analysis. Once all relevant reports had been assembled from the departments involved, together with a distribution address lists and frequency of report generation, the project team was able to categorize the full range of reports. With these systematically processed blocks of information, it was then possible to run workshops with the departments involved. During these workshops the characteristics and parameters required were identified, and the dimensions required to accommodate these factors decided upon. This process culminated in the design of a multidimensional data model, which enabled all relevant data to be obtained.

The information gathered from the various different source systems soon made it clear that all the data needed to be collated and pre-processed in a central data warehouse (DWH). The structure for this DWH was implemented on an MS SQL server platform and the data from the various different source systems is now updated each night with the help of SSIS packages (SQL Server Integration Services). Thereafter, the data is consolidated and checked in accordance with defined routines. The outcome of this nightly update is a consistent set of data for use by Board's multidimensional analysis and planning tool.

Using this solution, the various departments involved are able to analyze their most critical data, sourced from various dimensions, and can do so quickly. This includes, for example, the number of bednights, and the associated room utilization levels (single occupancy in double rooms etc.) in each Club, room category, and the latest booking status. All this information can be layered in other dimensions, e.g. the bookings channel or guest demographics, using a drill-down feature involving just a few clicks of the mouse. This completely eliminates the manual operation of processing data, and standard reports can be distributed automatically with the help of a report enrolment facility. This enables all users to obtain the specific information they require for their daily work, and to do so faster and more reliably.

Customer Benefits

An enhanced level of transparency with utilization analyses has been achieved by simplifying the reporting process. This has substantially reduced the resource required to pre-process data. Moreover, multidimensional analyses are now much easier to cover from all defined levels and are very easy to implement.

During the implementation of the reporting process, due account was taken of the future need to use the Board product for the analysis of planning data.