Webjet And Cendant/Travelport Announce Major Alliance

Webjet today announced that it has entered into a major supply and distribution alliance with Travelport and as a result Webjet will be materially accelerating the sale of hotel and accommodation products in the Australian market.

Commenting Webjet Managing Director, David Clarke, said:

Travelport, which is the new global corporate entity incorporating Cendant Travel Distribution Services, Galileo, Hotel Club, GTA, Orbitz, Ebookers and others will, as part of these arrangements, supply Webjet on special terms, access to its global hotel database which currently comprises approximately 60,000 properties. Webjet will, through its travel service aggregator, substantially increase the prominence of hotel availability, in conjunction with the sale of international and domestic flights and in addition, on a stand alone basis. As a part of Webjet's service aggregator technology, Webjet will be in a position of offering its huge domestic database integrated hotel selections linked automatically to selected flights and itinerary dates and payable through the one Webjet card transaction. We will over the next six months, be releasing a number of marketing initiatives, which are designed to dramatically accelerate the value offering to our customers in a number of creative ways. As a result, our customers will receive special values and we in return, will have the opportunity of materially increasing the unit sale to each of our customers.

Travelport's Managing Director Pacific, John Guscic said:

Travelport believes that there are substantial additional marketing opportunities through Webjet's extraordinary reach into the Australian travel market and that a historical process, where consumers may have chosen to separate hotel purchasing from flight purchasing, is capable of substantial change and modification to the benefit of the consumer. In addition, Travelport, through its Australian hotel and rate to go sites, which have an equivalently deep reach into the Australian market, will provide a link into Webjet for the facilitation of domestic and international flights. This provides an extremely valuable, symmetrical and strategic association to both company's benefit.

Commenting further, Webjet's Managing Director, David Clarke said:

Unlike specialist hotel brokers that operate in the Australian market that have a limited range of properties, the dimension of the Travelport hotel inventory is simply enormous. Approximately 60,000 hotels are available in the global inventory. The range and choice which this will provide Webjet's customers compared to specialist hotel brokers, is simply beyond comparison. Uniquely, because of the nature of the infrastructure which Webjet is able to tap into electronically, Webjet itself will incur no significant incremental operating costs and will, as a result be able, according to tactical and strategic opportunities, to adopt a quite aggressive marketing approach at both a product and distribution level.

It is our view that this association has the potential to substantially change the landscape relating to the sale of hotels and accommodation in the Australian market.