Yahoo Australia and NZ has signed deals with two online travel service companies to provide booking engines and services to its local Web site.

The enhanced travel site (http://au.travel.yahoo.com
) now features advance booking capability for more than 3,500 local and international hotels, flights and holiday packages, sightseeing tours, events and attractions, as well as travel guide information and news from Lonely Planet and Travelpress.

Online hotel booking services provider HotelClub is providing the booking engine for accommodation services on the site, while international activities booking engine Viator is supplying destination activities such as sightseeing, tours, attractions and events in more than 40 countries.

Yahoo says the decision to beef up its travel Web site capabilities follows latest figures from Roy Morgan research, which suggest that 2.2 million or 27 per cent of Australian Internet users now use the Web for travel information.

According to Roy Morgan, 379,000 out of the 8.6 million Internet users in Australia have also purchased travel tickets or accommodation online in the past three months.

Related stories on ITN:

(19/04/2002) ebookers Named Yahoo! Travel Partner in UK and Ireland

(07/12/1999) Leisureplanet Teams up with YAHOO! Travel in Germany and France

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