The ICE e-commerce platform OVSCruise, which underpins both online and offline services, provides outstanding capabilities in terms of highly targeted marketing/sales campaigns, dynamic yield management, loyalty rewards and highly enriched travel content.

E-Vacation Stores and Clubs

OVSCruise was designed and is maintained by an in-house development team, OVS.  Based on Microsoft SQL, the tool was designed with the flexibility to be branded for any customer by our internal merchandising team.  All partners are clearly separated by specific cobrand numbers.  This enables ICE to perform system enhancements that can be shared across all brands or can be brand specific.

The OVSCruise Web module provides one of the most appealing consumer e-shopping experiences available today. It only takes 9 simple touch points to book a cruise on an OVSCruise web site. Each OVS customer’s web site may be custom branded from the Headers and Footers down to the individual cruise receipt that the purchaser receives. The rich content of the OVSCruise data base is unmatched within theindustry, is 'intuitively accessible', and hence makes a significant contribution to customer appeal – and, ultimately, customer satisfaction and repeat visits to the site. The ability for the customer to book in real time, right down to cabin selection, for virtually all major carriers is also a major factor in customer appeal and satisfaction – and ultimately sales closings.

All cruise lines can be booked online while 11 major lines allow for instant reservation, cabin assignment and payment.  The open architecture of the ICE cruise booking platform allows the ability to add new cruise lines and content whenever required or requested.  Even those cruise lines not currently linked via GDS can be researched for itineraries and pricing.  Clients may request a booking and category type online with the booking confirmed within 24 hours of request.

The OVSCruise Consumer module provides the customer with over 250,000 pages of online content that includes ship reviews, deck plans, overall cabin and common area pictures. In addition, sailing facts, news and other points of interest are included that enable the consumer to make an educated selection based upon the anticipated cruise experience, not just price. Our rich online content is maintained daily by a full staff at ICE. The ICE Content team is constantly adding new itineraries, sailings and destination information to ensure that all OVSCruise sites stay vital and current.

Barter/Alternative Currencies

ICE’s most unique ability is our history in allowing “barter for travel.”  As the pioneer in timeshare cruise exchange, OVSCruise houses a unique platform that facilitates the “barter for travel” booking easily and conveniently whether online or via a booking agent.  Today, regardless of the asset (timeshare week, airline points, credit card loyalty points or other) ICE is able to deploy the same benefits to any loyalty program or create one unique to a client.  No other travel company has similar technology or capabilities to ICE, in this respect.

Yield Capabilities

ICE maintains an independent Yield group with over 20 combined years of experience in obtaining the best nets possible from the cruise lines; they are dedicated to ensuring that the best fare codes are maintained in the OVSCruise system.
Primary application is via the web utilizing GDS interfaces and SQL databases which provide for the necessary order processing, billing, reporting and communications. The SQL databases in turn communicate with the GDS through automation to enable processing fulfillment to our customers

The OVSCruise booking tool features one of the most robust Yield engines in the marketplace today.  Our Yield staff has the ability to build complex filtering rules based on current business requirements.  All cruise line fare codes are entered into the system and maintained daily by our staff.  The system is flexible enough to enable us to react to last minute deals which are reflected in the Agent and Consumer sides immediately.

OVSCruise allows:

• Automated payment of subsequent payment to the cruise line
• Automated booking and payment of third party travel insurance
• Because we have our own merchant account we are able to charge the margin on the booking at the time of booking rather than waiting for a commission check from the cruise line.  This payment is automatically processed through our system
• Internal cruise booking engine allows content from any cruise line to be added to the system allowing USAA members the ability to book XX number of cruise lines
• Loyalty points system allows customers to earn significant discounts on cruises
• Internal yield engine offers ICE the unique ability to give significant discounts to customers while ensuring that adequate margins are maintained.