Success Story Hospitality

Leading hotel and resort chain delivers modern mobile experience, accelerates product, & technology innovation

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This globally recognized hotel and resort company wanted to provide its loyalty program members with the best experience possible by enhancing its digital services.

As the adoption of smart devices exploded in the early 2010s, demand for travel information and services on these devices skyrocketed. Company executives moved quickly to invest in mobile development to meet the need. The primary focus was on building stickier guest relationships with members of the chain’s highly successful frequent traveler program. However, those efforts were derailed by highly manual and slow software QA and testing processes which made it difficult to get these new services to market quickly enough.

  • A leading international resort and leisure company

    A leading international resort and leisure company

  • More than 7000 properties in 130 countries

    More than 7000 properties in 130 countries

  • Maintains 30 distinct brands

    Maintains 30 distinct brands

  • Award-winning loyalty program

    Award-winning loyalty program

quality engineering and mobile app development for hotel and resort company

For the past 12 years and counting, the company has trusted Apexon to help facilitate its digital journey. As the strategic engineering partner, Apexon faced many challenges over the course of the engagement with the client. But best-in-class talent, technical expertise, and innovative thinking has come together to help Apexon produce significant tangible results for the client.

the Customer
Journey

2011

2013

2015

2017

2019

2022

2023

2011
  • Digital quality engineering engagement kickstarted
  • Mobile automation engagement kickstarted
  • QA strategy, methodology and processes
  • App testing – SPG iPhone app
  • Device testing – Android and iPad
  • Mobile web application testing

2013
  • Automation execution
  • iOS and Android mobile automation
  • Executed overall around 67k cases across all releases for both releases as well as test flight

2015
  • Mobile Keys phase 1 – successfully automated 14 mobile key without lock feature cases
  • iOS and Android mobile automation
  • Executed overall around 67k cases across all releases for both releases as well as test flight

2017
  • Enterprise automation CoE and governance (Aries, GraphQL, AEM) – supported content testing services build by supporting all the languages through automation

2019
  • App dome testing – successfully supported the build for EN-US language through automation

2022
  • Dashboarding – to provide testing insights while evaluating the technology stacks

2023
  • Defined and showcased QA automation process flow of Jenkins jobs
  • Repo created and maintaining Source/test code in Digital QA git
  • Closely working with L2 engineer team to enable pipeline for OMAF for Sanity test suite

the Results

Key Outcomes

Dramatic increase in mobile use
Dramatic increase
in mobile use

From insignificant in 2011 to almost 50% of all online traffic

International language support
International
language support

For up to 17 languages and 11 regional brands

Faster time-to-market
Faster
time-to-market

For critical new mobile apps and services: 20% improve release velocity

Unified automation framework
Unified automation
framework

Supporting multiple digital channels and enterprise applications with different device configurations (web, Aries, AEM, GraphQL, Microservices, API, mobile)

Improved coverage
Improved
coverage

Increased coverage of automated test cases: 90% of P1 test cases of what can be automated: ~80% of overall test cases of what can be automated

Dashboards & reports
Dashboards
& reports

Improved visibility with dashboards capturing key quality KPIs/metrics

The SOLUTION

ENGINEERING SERVICES TO ELEVATE & ACCELERATE DIGITAL OFFERINGS

Apexon has worked with the client on several different digital initiatives. The challenges and solutions for each initiative are outlined:

QE & TEST AUTOMATION

Test automation based on Selenium and Cucumber

In 2011, the company turned to Apexon to streamline its quality engineering (QE) processes and accelerate time to market for new offerings. This engagement helped lay the foundation for the expansion of its mobile services to international markets in different languages. Apexon also deployed automated user experience testing to ensure mobile instances are always running at peak levels.

The CHALLENGE
Manual QE Inadequate to Meet Portfolio of Global Digital Services

Quality Automation Framework

QE Processes Slow, manual QE processes made it impossible to respond to market demand quickly enough to meet demand

Quality Automation Framework

WCAGS All digital services had to meet ADA web content accessibility guidelines (WCAGs) across its web and mobile channels

Quality Automation Framework

Global Customer Base It’s global customer base required localized content in 17 different language, putting more pressure on delivery cycles

Quality Automation Framework

Advanced Digital Services The company wanted to offer advanced digital services that required complex technical skills for connectivity and personalization

The Solution
Streamlined Automated Quality Engineering Process

Apexon deployed a QE initiative and developed an app that accelerated the company’s ability to launch new digital services.

This dramatically streamlined mobile testing and QA processes.

Among the features included in this implementation:

With Apexon handling the streamlined mobile testing and QA processes, the client was able to focus on developing new digital services for their international travellers

Test automation based on Selenium and Cucumber leveraging Infostretch’s own test automation platform

Addition of a Quality Automation Framework which further accelerated new digital service deployment and reduced costs

  • Unified Scripting Across Digital Platforms – The right tool for web, mobile (including native, hybrid, and mobile web), and web service test automation solutions
  • Federated Dashboards & Detailed Reports – Trends and root cause analysis, automated screen captures, CI integration with Jenkins
  • Data Driven – Run a single test case against multiple test data sets provided through CSV, XML, JSON, Microsoft Excel or your own database
  • Increased Collaboration with Manual Testers, Developers and Business/Project Owners – Behavior-driven and keyword-driven test authoring
  • Cloud Based – Supports cloud-based execution of test scripts, CI/CD pipelines
  • Streamlined/Structured Approach – Abstracting the technical implementation away from the operational components
  • Selenium Driven Automated Testing – Web, Mobile, GraphQL, AEM test automation, support to multi-lingual applications
  • Reusable Test Assets – Highly maintainable and repeatable tests that utilize reusable test assets, proper modularity, and semantic structure

Multiple agile development and test initiatives for native, mobile web and desktop to ensure a premium user experience. This included:

  • 20 combinations of desktop browsers
  • 6 different combinations of mobile web
  • Device compatibility testing with a range of iOS and Android devices

Agile testing comprised of 2 week “sprints”, followed by regression and end-to-end testing

2 months of integration testing on 4-5 device platforms in 17 languages

Early triage of potential issues and analysis of content

ARIES WEB AUTOMATION
The CHALLENGE
Unable to Delivery Quality Product with Agility

The Apexon team designed and developed a scalable and unified framework for Aries and extended AEM platform pages that automates and accelerates product and technology innovations to enhance quality and foster growth.

While the client had achieved streamlined mobile testing and QA processes for faster time to market, it still needed speed and scale. The client sought a scalable framework to automate and accelerate its product and technology innovations without compromising quality. They needed Apexon’s help to understand and optimize their existing Aries architecture and automation frameworks.

The Solution
Scalable Framework to Automates & Accelerates Product & Technology Innovations

Using Quality Automation Framework (QAF)

The Aries web automation initiative built a strong foundation for CI/CD, multithreaded execution, Browserstack support, and Jenkins setup.

Using Quality Automation Framework (QAF)

Using Quality Automation Framework (QAF) Team began by building a sample Aries use cases using QAF to understand its features and feasibility

Aries Web Automation

Aries Web Automation More than 200 bugs were uncovered by Aries web automation. Over 11 languages and 13+ extended languages were supported for the regression and sanity suite

Sanity & Regression Test Cases

Sanity & Regression Test Cases The team migrated 1000+ sanity and regression test cases to OMAF. They successfully executed sanity and regression for 20+ releases with 100% release regression execution from OMAF

Advanced Digital Services

Advanced Digital Services Apexon established an automation COE and aligned digital QA with automation requirements