Astral Holidays was founded in Plovdiv in 1995 with just four employees. It now has about 60, and eight offices, in Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna, and in the summer season, in Sunny Beach and Golden Sands as well.

Since 1997, Astral Holidays has been an authorised IATA agent.

Services that it has offered for some time include air ticket reservations, and incoming and outgoing travel services for destinations in Bulgaria and abroad.

Now, the company has added a new quiver to its bow, through the website www.tirs.net.

Astral Holidays’ Kalin Neshev says that the company is broadening its base by aiming towards catering to large-scale tourism.

Asked about the profile of the company’s clients, he said that they had a wide range, with various types of clients according to the season.

With the tirs.net service, clients can do bookings directly online, at any time of day, every day of the week.

A point of pride is that www.tirs.net was developed in Bulgaria by Bulgarian specialists working for Astral Holidays. It took two years to develop, and consists of software that communicates in real time with the server at Astral Holidays.

Some hotels have their own software, which is always online with the tirs.net system. “When a client makes a reservation people at reception at an hotel immediately see the reservation,” Neshev says.

Some hotels do not have this kind of direct communication, and reservations operate through a web-based interface with the TIRS computer.

“We are trying to expand the system to attract other companies working in the same way to use this product to sell and book hotel accommodation in Bulgaria,” says Neshev.

The most significant advantages of the TIRS system, he says, include that it was designed to meet the requirements of the Bulgarian market, and corresponds to the capabilities and capacities of the hotels’ computer systems. Clients have the choice of Bulgarian or English when using tirs.net.