Editor’s note: Customers who provide a testimonial are given a question catalogue for guidance. The opinions expressed are entirely their own, and there is no obligation to follow the provided questions1. We express our gratitude to Travel Connect for providing us with this feedback.
Travel Connect X CrewBrain Overview
At Travel Connect, a leading travel brand in Iceland, we manage over 300 employees across various travel agencies. Our largest company, Iceland Travel, began using CrewBrain in 2024, initially to enhance bus and guide utilization for our Cruise department, the largest cruise service in Iceland. We later extended CrewBrain’s application to our Leisure department. The main feature that we were looking at in the beginning of the implementation is that our guides would have more transparent information for their trips and better overall view for all users, both guides and internal users.
Key Features and Benefits
The Short Record module stands out for day-to-day operations, allowing us to update and create trips all in one view. Probably the most important feature is the assignment of resources, we have a long list of guides and buses which we have to assign to each projects (if required) and that is one of the features that charmed us when we were scoping systems in the beginning of this implementation. Another significant tool is the API, which is highly effective for us in the Operations team at Travel Connect and the multiple endpoints have allowed us extract data into our databases and more. Since implementing CrewBrain, we have seen major enhancements in bus utilization, better information access for our guides, and improved management of ongoing trips. The user-groups feature has also allowed us to modify what information should be displayed to our guides. With all these key features, a great benefit that we get from CrewBrain is the trackability, we can track projects, what work was done, how many hours were put in the project etc. This allowed us to gather and analyse the data which is something that we were not doing properly before the time of CrewBrain. The data has been valuable and has given us the opportunity to take data-driven decisions, spot bottlenecks and find areas where we can improve.
Usage and Custom Solutions
With over 400 active users (300 external and roughly 100 internal, split into 6 user-groups), we have gotten great feedback from both sides. The user interface and API enable the development of custom solutions and seamless integration with other internal systems. The API’s numerous endpoints support efficient, automatic data synchronization, saving considerable time by avoiding duplicate project entries in different systems. Some projects that the Operations team at Travel Connect has worked on and used the CrewBrain API:
- Retrieving payroll data
- Importing projects between systems to prevent duplication
- Generating data for PowerBI reports
Operational Impact
Though it’s challenging to quantify the exact time savings, key improvements include enhanced communication with guides and overall work quality. However, one custom solution using the CrewBrain API has saved us an estimated 200 hours annually.
Future Developments and Support
I have had the privilege to preview the upcoming CrewBrain version, and what I can say is that it looks promising and I’m sure that our team will be happy with the upcoming changes. Sven has provided excellent ongoing support, ensuring that even a year after implementation, he always finds time to answer my questions, for which I’m very grateful.
Conclusion
CrewBrain has proved to be an effective tool for our day-to-day operations at Iceland Travel and we have upcoming projects where CrewBrain will play a major part in overview and efficiency. Personally, I’m looking forward to utilize the API/v2 although I’m happy to had some extra lessons to practice my German when I was working with the original API. For me, the most important thing is that CrewBrain gives us a complete overview of our operations within the department that are using CrewBrain and we are gathering data to take data-driven decisions in the Travel Connect operation. We will be integrating CrewBrain to more of our systems and if needed, we will be implementing the system to more brands in the future.
We thank Gunnar Eyjólfsson, Process Improvement Engineer at Travel Connect, for his feedback!
- Questions are:
* What has changed for you with the introduction of CrewBrain?
* Which modules are the key features for you?
* What added value do you gain from these features (e.g., time savings, no more phone calls)?
* Do you use an interface or the API? If yes, which one, and what advantage do you get from automatic synchronization (e.g., time savings, no duplicate creation of projects in multiple systems)?
* What can you say about the regular further development of CrewBrain and its support? ↩︎
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