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OpenJaw Technologies and Airtrade to Power New Possibilities for Travel Fulfilment

Dépèche transmise le 23 mars 2012 par Business Wire

OpenJaw Technologies and Airtrade to Power New Possibilities for Travel Fulfilment

DUBLIN & HAARLEM, Netherlands--(BUSINESS WIRE)--OpenJaw Technologies (Dublin, Ireland), online technology partner to the world’s biggest travel brands and leading travel fulfilment company, Airtrade (Haarlem, The Netherlands) a BCD company, today announced a commercial partnership to provide an end-to-end business service to airlines, loyalty programmes and travel companies. By combining the OpenJaw t-Retail Platform technology with Airtrade’s fulfilment services it is now easier for any company to become a complete travel retailer, without redirecting their customers to competing third-party sites.

“This partnership is an entirely new model for both of our companies”

Airtrade and OpenJaw now offer a unique and valuable middle ground between white-label affiliate providers and a travel company building its own tour operator capability. The agreement will enable companies to sell a much broader range of products (from flights and hotel stays to car rental and destination activities) entirely under their brand. Regardless of product type or source, travel companies will retain the customer on one site and act as a merchant for the entire shopping cart. The service will also see airlines benefit from selling directly sourced hotel products more effectively and at higher margins without the overhead of hiring specialists in the areas of hotel contracting, customer servicing and accounting.

The fulfilment services provided by Airtrade include:

• travel specialist contact centre
• sales and servicing
• flight ticketing and fulfilment
• localised merchant of record and payment processing
• agency and tour operator bonding in multiple markets
• hotel contracting
• back office and accounting
• supplier payment and reconciliation

"This partnership is an entirely new model for both of our companies," said Wim Butte, CEO of Airtrade, "Our combined services provide airlines, loyalty programmes and other travel companies with a unique level of choice and control to choose the best mix of technology and fulfilment services to meet their needs."

The service will be provided via the OpenJaw t-Retail Platform technology, which enables travel brands to offer seamless online shopping experiences to their customers while maximising commercial benefits for their business.

"This is a unique model for the travel industry. It enables our clients to quickly get to market a complete travel retail experience, without the need to create a tour operator or travel agency subsidiary," said Kieron Branagan, CEO, OpenJaw. ”Importantly the service does not hand customers off to a third-party for complementary travel products or redemption booking thereby allowing companies to own the customer throughout their journey, both online and beyond.”

The t-Retail Platform enables travel companies to:

• Inspire and acquire site visitors by curating compelling and unique content and promotions
• Personalise search results and travel product offers by leveraging customer history and insight
• Differentiate with deeper integration into suppliers for unique inventory or rates and with complete control of business rules
• Convert more customers at any customer touch point, through proven retail strategies e.g. using shopping cart, cross sell, up sell, switch sell, and dynamic packaging

About OpenJaw Technologies

OpenJaw Technologies is a leading online technology partner of the world’s biggest travel brands, including: British Airways, Etihad, KLM, Air Miles, Aeroplan and SAS.

OpenJaw’s t-Retailing concept has been developed on the back of OpenJaw’s long history in delivering online travel technology solutions to airlines, OTAs, loyalty programmes and hotel groups. Based on the principles of Inspiration, Personalisation, Differentiation and Conversion, it outlines a blueprint for travel retailing success.

The-Retail Platform is a complete platform for the online retailing of travel products from air, car, hotel, and activities to insurance, transfers and other ancillaries. OpenJaw is headquartered in Dublin (Ireland) and has regional offices in Galway (Ireland), Madrid (Spain), Berlin (Germany) and Dallas (USA) with representation in Moscow (Russia).

About Airtrade

Airtrade is a travel fulfilment company, offering fulfilment, consolidating and IT-services to airlines and travel companies. Airtrade is part of BCD Holdings. BCD Holdings has approximately 13,500 employees, offices in 30 countries and its partners and affiliates in over 90 countries worldwide. In 2011 BCD Holdings generated revenue of U.S. $20.8 billion (including franchising).

Other BCD Holdings companies include:

• BCD Travel (business travel)
• Travix (online travel: Cheap Tickets, Vliegwinkel, BudgetAir, Flugladen and Vayama)
• TRX (travel technologies)
• Park n’Fly (airport parking)
• Parkmobile International (mobile parking and traffic applications)
• VakantieXperts (leisure travel)
• Primary Capital (real estate)