Business Challenge
"Multi–continent and around–the–world travelers who are interested in creating the trip of a lifetime are the primary audience for AirTreks," says AirTreks president Jim Pilaar. "These AirTrekkers may be students taking advantage of their gap year, or recent MBA graduates who want to enrich their lives through travel before entering the work force, families taking the summer to experience the world with their children, or seniors who realize that their trip of a lifetime can be customized to their interests for a fraction of the cost quoted by the major airlines."
Customization is the key word. AirTreks sends its clients precisely where they want to go, to do precisely what they want to do. Every leg of the journey ties in with their specific interests. And such customized services requires customized technology. AirTreks has used FileMaker Pro since Version 1.0 — and after nearly a decade and a half, FileMaker remains the foundation of the AirTreks system. "We needed to create a customized CRM solution to handle the complex process of keeping track of hundreds of thousands of airfare deals around the world and the millions of visitors to our website each year who are interested in this kind of long–haul global travel," Jim explains. "We built a system that tracks every visitor contact, fare deal, communication with our customers, airfare vendors, and airline partners, and every ticket order processed by our company."
