BOGOTA, Colombia, June 9, 2010 - Aviatur, the leading travel agency in Colombia, has chosen Cisco® technologies to upgrade its communications platform, with the purpose of improving its productivity, generating more business opportunities and reducing costs.

Aviatur implemented a Cisco Unified Communications solution and created a Cisco IP Contact Center. It also renewed its wide-area network and created two data centers with geographically distributed servers that enable disaster recovery.

Highlights:

• The solution consisted of an installation of Internet Protocol telephony in the 298 branches of the company and the implementation of Cisco Unified Communications 6.0 solutions and Cisco Unified Contact Center Express.
• Aviatur installed 2,168 Cisco IP telephones with various capabilities according to the needs of each branch. The Unified Communications platform allows Aviatur to control the long-distance calls as well as determine the appropriate features for each extension, depending on the employee's profile.  
• The Cisco Unified Communications 6.0 solution provides access to mobility services through Cisco IP Communicator, which gives desk or portable equipment the functions of IP telephones. Employees can thus make calls from any place they can access the company's network.
• The implemented solution includes the Cisco Extension Mobility application, through which the users can authenticate themselves from any IP telephone, load their profile, and enjoy the benefits of mobility.
• The Cisco Unified Communications 6.0 platform of unified messaging allows users to listen to their voicemails and faxed documents from their e-mail accounts and respond to them via e-mail.  
• Aviatur chose Cisco technology to create an IP contact center. It carried out the implementation of the Cisco Unified Contact Center Express solution for 60 agents and plans to reach a total of 108.  
• The upgrade of the wide-area network included the implementation of Cisco routers, new access switches and Power over Eternet functionality.
• Two data centers were also created, a primary one and a backup, with servers distributed geographically, which allow call-center services and disaster recovery.

Supporting Quotes

• Didier Morales, telecommunications director, Aviatur

"Apart from the standardization of quality and customer service, Cisco Unified Communications and the Cisco IP Contact Center have allowed Aviatur to control telephony expenses, reducing unnecessary calls and long-distance costs."

"Thanks to Cisco technology, in the world of travel agencies we now have a competitive advantage."

• Gerardo Chaves, collaboration business development manager for Cisco Central America, Caribbean and North of South America

"With its new Cisco Unified Communications solution, Aviatur has the agility and high availability of not having geographic barriers for a customer to continue interacting with their consultants during trips or event-planning processes. Consultants now have an enterprise voice extension and all the customer-service tools wherever they are working while having corporate network access. This is a true competitive advantage in the travel and tourism industry."

About Aviatur

Aviatur is the main group of the tourism industry in Colombia with 30 companies distributed in 298 offices in the country and representation in Quito (Ecuador), Caracas (Venezuela), La Habana (Cuba), Panama City, Paris and Miami.  For further information, please visit: http://www.grupoaviatur.com/es/.