Firmly Positions GetThere In European B2B Travel Market
GetThere.com? (NASDAQ: GTHR), the leading provider of Internet-based business-to-business travel systems, and British Airways announced they have signed an agreement to deliver a travel portal for the UK’s small- and medium-sized enterprises. The new portal is hosted by GetThere and provides the travel booking capability and benefits previously available only to large corporations.
As the core of its new venture, British Airways will use the GetThere Global Manager? system, the travel procurement system used by top global corporations to utilize the GetThere Exchange platform. It allows a company’s employees to book air, car and hotel reservations on their corporate intranet with negotiated discount prices, policy management, reporting/analysis and customized look and feel. Using GetThere’s Super Site capability, British Airways will create a main travel portal that contains separate Web sites for individual enterprise customers. Each customer will have a dedicated site with the same travel booking functionality that has been available to large corporations.
According to Simon Parks Smith, manager of British Airways’ B2B e-commerce, “This is an opportunity for us to use e-commerce to become the world’s leading e-airline. GetThere is established as the leading provider of business-to-business travel systems and the new Super Site capability gives British Airways the opportunity to quickly provide small- and medium-sized business customers with advanced e-commerce solutions.”
“British Airways has recognized the opportunity provided by the Internet, and is moving quickly to secure a leadership position in this new economy,” said Gadi Maier, president and CEO of GetThere. “This agreement firmly establishes GetThere in the European B2B travel marketplace, and demonstrates a new dimension to GetThere’s business-to-business focus, running exchanges or portals for companies like British Airways, that let them support potentially thousands of their business customers.”
The new British Airways venture is targeted at small- to medium-sized businesses. For larger corporations, GetThere provides a dedicated Global Manager system for online travel procurement.
The GetThere Exchange platform is an open, Internet-based travel distribution system that connects leading airlines, hotels and rental car agencies with buyers in real-time.
GetThere Super Site is a capability that allows one central travel booking system to contain multiple sub-sites that can be customized to support the different requirements of individual businesses, including global distribution systems (GDS), travel agencies, travel policies, administrative functions, and air, car and hotel contracts. It provides British Airways a single management platform with consolidated information and reporting for all of the sub sites. The Super Site capability is also being deployed by major multinational corporations that are creating sub-sites for different divisions, subsidiaries and regional offices.
About GetThere

GetThere.com (Nasdaq: GTHR) is the leading provider of Internet-based e-commerce systems for business-to-business travel procurement. The company offered the first corporate Internet travel booking system in 1996 as Internet Travel Network (ITN). Today, GetThere provides travel procurement solutions to major corporations, travel suppliers, and e-commerce sites. GetThere’s Global Manager system is used by leading global companies such as Nike, Lucent, Chevron, Boeing, Cisco Systems, Texas Instruments and Procter & Gamble. GetThere’s FlightRez? system is used by United Airlines, Alitalia, All Nippon Airways, National Airlines and Northwest Airlines. The company also provides the online booking capability to several e-commerce sites including AmericanExpress.com and Trip.com.
GetThere, the GetThere logo, Global Manager and FlightRez and GetThere Application Network trademarks of GetThere.com, Inc
——-