Tickets can even be bought over the internet, to further cut down waiting time once you get to the slopes. The system issues skiers with innovative cards featuring RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags at no extra cost which can be charged with different types of ski passes - from day passes to season's passes - issued by Dolomiti Superski or by operators of individual ski lifts. This means skiers can access the ski lifts without having to put a ticket into a reader or handle a ski pass.

Local systems capture data as each RFID ski pass goes by and send it directly to the Oracle Data Center, where all the information generated on all the slopes is stored.

"All skiers understand the advantages of not having to show or stamp a ski pass when you're wearing gloves and carrying gear," said Dolomiti Superski CIO Gianni Rasom. "We use cards based on RFID technology to allow people to get onto the slopes faster and easier, by a process which is more pleasant for the skier and more reliable for the ski lift operator. And it also gives us a much more accurate idea of how many people are out there skiing on our slopes."

The system also offers a number of benefits for ski lift operators, from accurate figures on the number of people using ski passes and how they use them to the possibility of immediately deactivating a ski pass which is lost or fraudulently used. The new system opens up new horizons for operators, who can analyse users' behaviour and come up with new services designed to make a ski holiday in the Dolomites even more attractive and enjoyable.

"The Dolomiti Superski initiative uses technology to make a big improvement in people's lives, and Oracle is happy to be able to help," said Oracle Italia Wireless and Mobile Business Solutions Development Director Oscar Gridavilla. "The Dolomiti Superski system offers an excellent example of how Oracle products work transparently with a variety of other top technologies to improve business performance and customer service".

The link with the ticketing system is achieved through data transmission over locally available technologies such as GSM, GPRS, ISDN, ADSL and analogue telephone lines and permits use of connection points as bridges for areas without coverage. Oracle turned to partner CAP Spa to smooth out the wrinkles in this system. As such a wide variety of technologies requires an infrastructure which is as stable as it is advanced, CAP and Dolomiti Superski chose Oracle® Database Enterprise Edition and Oracle Application Server to allow the system to function with all the dependability needed to support the world's biggest skiing district. Business Intelligence tools supplied by Oracle also permit querying of the data collected by the system so as to obtain an up-to-date profile of business trends at any time.

"Everybody knows that Oracle makes databases, but Oracle also offers some very important middleware - Oracle Application Server," commented CAP Managing Director Pietro Jacassi. "This not only made it easier to integrate the interfaces of various technologies employed, but permitted rapid introduction of effective Business Intelligence functions without having to worry about integrating a package from a different supplier. This was an important reason for our choice of Oracle as the platform for the Dolomiti Superski system".