Travelport advances mobile strategy with MTT acquisition
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Travelport‘s mobile strategy has taken a major step forward with the acquisition of Mobile Travel Technologies Ltd (MTT).
Dublin-based MTT develops a range of mobile services for airlines, hotels, corporate travel management companies and travel agencies, including apps, mobile web and messaging services. These are then delivered to smartphones, tablets and wearable devices, including the Apple Watch.
Its clients include easyJet, Singapore Airlines and BCD Travel.
“It is a natural extension of Travelport’s strategy of redefining travel commerce to have acquired, what we believe to be, the largest and most successful company focused on delivering sophisticated mobile services and apps to the travel industry,” said Gordon Wilson, Travelport’s president & CEO.
“Adding MTT as an expanded capability to our existing travel commerce platform extends our reach further, and at the higher value add end of the service spectrum for our airline, hotel, travel management company and travel agency clients.”
MTT will now become subsidiary of Travelport, retaining existing CEO, Gerry Samuels, along with his management team.
“Becoming part of the Travelport family will enable MTT to accelerate what we are already doing in the travel industry – bringing cutting edge mobile innovations to airlines and travel intermediaries so that they can better serve the end traveller with innovative and personalised mobile services that transform the travel experience,” said Samuels.
In 2014, mobile accounted for around one third of all e-commerce transactions globally, and air ticket transactions are predicted to grow from just under 200 million in 2014 to in excess of 540m by 2018. And in the US alone, the transaction value of hotel bookings made using mobile devices is expected to grow from US$2.7 billion in 2014 to US$5.4bn in 2016.
Travelport said the EUR55 million (US$61m) acquisition would be “funded from [its] cash resources”.
The acquisition of MTT follows other recent Travelport investments, including the purchase of Travel IT, Hotelzon, and an expanded stake in eNett, the electronic payments company.
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