Helloworld ends Orbitz partnership
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Helloworld has announced that it has terminated its partnership with Orbitz Worldwide.
The Australian travel company previously used Orbitz technology to power its website. But following discussions with Orbitz’s new owners, Expedia, it has decided to end the partnership. As a result, the helloworld.com.au site will transition to a new platform on 31 August 2016.
Andrew Burnes, Helloworld’s CEO, said that the alliance “had not delivered the revenue streams initially envisaged” and had created “too much conflict with Helloworld’s branded and associate members”.
“While Helloworld.com.au, utilising the Orbitz technology, has been in one sense a success in that it attracted a lot of new online customers to the portal, the financial investment by Helloworld Limited in its development is over AU$18 million (US$13.9m) to date and between the ongoing losses of the dot-com operation and the channel conflict with the online site carrying the same brand as our branded and associate members, we have decided to transition the site to a more agent-aligned portal,” said Burnes.
“This operation has been costing about US$6m a year over the last two years plus capital expenditure and these losses will now come to an end as a result of the decision to transition to a new site and end the current agreement,” he added.
The company’s current deal with Ready Rooms will also come to an end on 31 August and Burnes indicated that Helloworld would be entering into a new agreement with the Expedia Affiliate Network (EAN).
“Our Ready Rooms trade portal has been going very well. Up until now, content has come from Orbitz and from our internal wholesale businesses however we are in the process of replacing the Orbitz content with Expedia content and bolstering our internal content by adding AOT’s significant content in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific and the amount of available rooms on the Ready Rooms site will more than double once these two connections are complete” said he concluded.
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