Travelport Corporate Solutions, Inc., a subsidiary of Cendant Corp, has been officially launched in the United Kingdom in the company’s initial expansion of its global solutions for the corporate travel market outside of North America. This European debut coincides with the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) international conference, taking place this week in Dublin, Ireland.

Travelport will offer corporate travelers, travel managers and travel management companies throughout the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region a unique and customisable business travel solution that helps reduce overall travel management costs by up to 40 percent. Travelport was launched in the United States in August at the National Business Traveler Association conference in Dallas. More than 275 U.S.-based companies, including large, global, and multi-national corporations are taking advantage of Travelport’s corporate travel management solutions, including the Company’s recently upgraded online booking capability.

Along with the official international launch of Travelport, Cendant has named Johnny Thorsen general manager for Travelport, responsible for the strategic development and roll out of Travelport in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Prior to joining Travelport, Thorsen was with Sabre’s GetThere operation for five years, where he served as director of product marketing and business development. Prior to this role, Thorsen spent two years with BTI as head of IT in Europe and North America, based in the company’s UK headquarters, as well as four years as the director of IT for Berg-Hansen Travel Group in Oslo, Norway.

“I am very excited to be joining Travelport at such an important stage. I believe that the timing is perfect to introduce a truly integrated and flexible solution to the evolving corporate travel marketplace,” said Thorsen. “Faced with ongoing consolidation and increased demands for cost reduction, we continue to see more convergence of offerings in today’s travel industry and Travelport is uniquely positioned to succeed in this evolution by leveraging the strength of Cendant.

“Travelport delivers value right through the corporate travel chain and I am looking forward to working with our travel management partners and their customers to ensure that they realize the true benefits of this solution,” added Thorsen.

“Johnny is the ideal person to lead the roll out of Travelport to the EMEA region in partnership with our Galileo International Markets division and our travel management partners,” said Marka Jenkins, president and CEO of Travelport. “We have developed a flexible corporate travel solution and look forward to working with Galileo’s travel management network and corporations to introduce the benefits of Travelport throughout EMEA.”

Travelport’s unique portfolio allows corporations to individually select the tools and services that either complement current programs managed by their travel management company or help define new ones. Travelport’s breadth of services and improved functionality are also designed to benefit those travel management companies and Galileo-connected agencies directly, enabling them to offer their corporate customers a broader array of services and capabilities to increase travel policy compliance and reduce costs, as well as the ability to better manage any supplier contracts.

The Travelport name originated from Highwire, Inc.‘s online booking tool, Travelport.net, as its Web access for its customers. The Travelport name has replaced Highwire, Inc. and the name of the Cendant subsidiary is Travelport Corporate Solutions, Inc. The Travelport brand will be used in the future to reference the comprehensive range of services the company is now offering to corporations.

For more information on Travelport, please visit www.travelport.com.
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