Amadeus had signed a global agreement with lastminute.com in March 2002
giving Amadeus a significant share of lastminute.com`s travel distribution
business in UK, France, Spain, Italy, Benelux, Germany, Sweden, for which
migration has now been completed.

In 2002, lastminute.com
extended its global reach by acquiring Travelselect,
The Destination Group (parent of UK-based Travel4less), Travelprice.com
and
made a strategic investment in Germany-based LCC24.com, the online arm of
Lufthansa City Center, which all now use Amadeus
.

The European online travel market is expected to leap from EUR 4.2 billion
in 2001 to EUR 20.6 billion by 2006* and in the last 12 months total online
bookings, through Amadeus API, more than trebled.

“We are pleased to be working with Amadeus across the lastminute.com group.
Amadeus has demonstrated that it has consistently good connectivity to all
the main carriers in Europe and is a good fit for us, giving our users the
speediest response times in the industry,” commented Brent Hoberman
, Founder
and CEO, lastminute.com.

Gillian Gibson, Director Travel Agency Partners, Amadeus added that “this
deal underlines our position as the leading technology provider to key
online travel websites, like lastminute.com and Travelselect.com.”

Related stories on ITN:
(27/03/2003) Lastminute Announces Proposed Acquisition of Holiday Autos

(12/03/2003) Worldspan Signs Four Year Contract with lastminute

(14/02/2003) lastminute.com Delivers New Online Theatre Offering

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