Expedia Affiliate Network has announced a new partnership with New Zealand’s Travelbug, one of the country’s most successful OTAs.

The deal will see EAN powering Travelbug’s international hotels offering, as the site expands from its current domestic focus to sell hotels in destinations worldwide.

Travelbug is using the latest version of EAN’s state-of-the-art private-label retail platform, Chameleon, which will afford consumers a fast, intuitive shopping experience, and access to almost 155,000 of the best hotels worldwide.

Travelbug selected EAN and the Chameleon platform after a competitive RFP involving other players in the OTA affiliate space.

The superior flexibility of the Chameleon platform was a key factor in the decision.

Benoit Jolin, vice president product and marketing at Expedia Affiliate Network, said: “Travelbug is one of New Zealand’s home-grown digital success stories, so we’re thrilled that our Chameleon platform will be powering its exciting expansion into international hotel bookings, offering a fast, robust browsing and booking experience to meet the needs of Travelbug’s customers.”

Travelbug is part of the Trade Me family of websites, the online marketplace and classifieds business which now serves around 65 per cent of New Zealand webpages, and caters to a wide variety of consumers’ retail needs.

Last year, more than one million people bought or sold something on Trade Me.

Trade Me re-launched the homepage and navigation of its main site this month, making Travelbug more prominent.

Consumers are now able to book Travelbug hotels directly from the Trade Me homepage for the first time.