Travelport acquires stake in German tour operator
Travelport has acquired a majority stake in leading German tour operator distribution company, travel-IT.
The strategic investment will significantly increase Travelport’s presence and reach in the €26 billion German leisure travel industry.
A substantial portion of the leisure travel sector in Germany is comprised of tour operators offering their content, either on a pre-packaged or dynamically packaged basis. travel-IT provides a platform that enables the real time offer, search and booking of the unique content from all the major operators serving Germany, to consumers who purchase from travel retailers.
Over the past two years alone, Travelport has strategically invested over $475 million in developing its Travel Commerce Platform to address the trends, inefficiencies and unmet needs of the global travel industry.
It will now bring all of this experience and innovation to travel-IT’s business, introducing this powerful and highly competitive means of access for German tour operators to sell the widest range of products possible through on-line and off-line travel agencies, with state of the art features and capabilities.
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Travelport’s participation in equity of travel-IT was part of a wider transaction which also saw some of the leading German tour operators invest alongside.
“We have expanded our Beyond Air capabilities in the payments, corporate travel and hotel distribution areas with our increased investment in eNett, our investment into Locomote and our acquisition of Hotelzon respectively.
“This latest tuck-in investment in travel-IT for Germany is consistent with our strategy to address the previously unmet needs of our customers and to redefine travel commerce using newer and better technology to enable unrivalled access to travel content through empowered selling systems.” Added Wilson.
Travelport makes content available from some 400 network and low cost airlines, 600,000 individual hotel properties, all the major car rental companies and a host of other travel related content on its Travel Commerce Platform.