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Meet Us at ITB Berlin!
4 – 6 March 2025
Berlin ExpoCenter City
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Education First (abbreviated as ‘EF’) was founded back in 1965 by Bertil Hult in the small Swedish university town of Lund. The company gradually developed over the years to blossom into an established global educational service provider. Its staff counts over 50 thousand employees residing in 116 countries. The current corporate headquarters are located in Lucerne, Switzerland.
The major specializations at the company are language training, academic degree programs, educational travel and cultural exchange arrangements. The company is famous for publishing the annual EF English Proficiency Index evaluating the level of English knowledge by country. EF also developed the globally acknowledged EF English proficiency test for non-native English speakers. Besides traditional activities, the company is also actively exploring the e-learning service market.
EF’s educational travel department was using multiple software systems for handling the daily operations involved in air ticket bookings, accommodation reservations, car rentals, activity scheduling, and more. However, these systems were outdated, inefficient, and lacked the flexibility to grow with the company’s expanding needs. EF decided to upgrade to a more modern, custom-built solution that would:
EF had been in communication with GP Solutions for several years prior to the project. GP Solutions proposed an efficient solution based on a customized travel automation platform that had been tested and trusted in the industry for over a decade. This made GP Solutions the perfect choice for EF, combining travel industry expertise with a proven technology solution.
To ensure the project’s success and minimize risks, GP Solutions conducted a detailed discovery phase. This included outlining technical and business requirements and developing documentation to serve as the blueprint for development:
The core of the platform was based on GP Travel Enterprise, a travel automation solution offering out-of-the-box functionality for:
Key customizations included:
A vital part of the project involved creating a custom connection to Amadeus GDS, which allowed EF to streamline flight bookings and leverage special pricing conditions using corporate codes. GP Solutions also enhanced the Passenger Name Record (PNR) process by adding important additional values, ensuring smooth integration with multiple office IDs provided by the GDS.
As a unique marketing feature, EF requested a custom loyalty program where users could earn and redeem points for partial booking payments. GP Solutions integrated a 3rd-party bonus program engine, enabling real-time data exchange between the systems and extending EF’s user management functionality to support various membership levels.
Other key elements of the solution included:
The new booking automation platform transformed EF’s educational travel business by offering a more efficient, user-friendly system with improved functionality and greater scalability. Key outcomes include:
EF has continued to benefit from the platform, with ongoing collaboration and new project opportunities. The solution is fully scalable, adaptable to future growth, and has significantly improved operational efficiency.
Dennis Behnsen, Vice President
“I can highly recommend the services of GP Solutions. During the past 1.5 years, our company has been working with GP Solutions on a new project of ours. The company offers high quality services. We can say that we have always been satisfied by their work.”
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