Dépêches

Amadeus and Expedia sign multi-year agreement in North America

Dépèche transmise le 19 avril 2012 par Business Wire

MADRID--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Amadeus, a leading travel technology provider and transaction processor for the global travel and tourism industry, and Expedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE), the world’s largest online travel company, today announced they have signed a multi-year content and technology agreement for North America. The agreement provides Expedia with Amadeus’ fare search technologies for air travel among other products, as well as access to global travel supplier content through the Amadeus system.

“We are delighted to strengthen our relationship with an industry leader such as Expedia. This relationship has grown because both companies share an important strategic alignment, where bringing greater value through innovative services to both customers and suppliers is a shared objective.”

Expedia, Inc. is the largest travel enterprise in the world in terms of air volumes, offering airfare search and reservation capabilities to travelers in over 25 countries through its portfolio of international brands that provide full service and corporate travel offerings, including Expedia®, Egencia® and Hotwire®. Expedia’s proprietary Best Fare Search airfare shopping technology combined with Amadeus’s airline connectivity and robust functionality enrich the traveler’s experience by enhancing Expedia’s overall selection and ensuring fast, efficient, and accurate real-time search results.

Since 2005, when its initial long-term global agreement with Expedia was established, Amadeus has been providing its services to Expedia in over 15 countries. Services include but are not limited to, content distribution, Application Programming Interface (API) and Web Services, Amadeus Selling Platform agent desktop software, and Amadeus Master Pricer low-fare search technology.

Greg Schulze, SVP Global Tour & Transport, Expedia, Inc., said, “Amadeus brings a global footprint, efficient technology, and a level of scalability that is absolutely critical in today’s travel marketplace. Amadeus shares our commitment to providing travelers and travel suppliers with value, service and proven results. And, building on our existing global relationship with Amadeus allows us to further diversify our GDS relationships as we continue to grow around the world.”

Holger Taubmann, SVP Distribution for Amadeus worldwide stated, “We are delighted to strengthen our relationship with an industry leader such as Expedia. This relationship has grown because both companies share an important strategic alignment, where bringing greater value through innovative services to both customers and suppliers is a shared objective.”

Scott Gutz, President & CEO, Amadeus North America, commented, “Amadeus has built a solid and successful relationship with Expedia over the last seven years, so it is a natural next step to grow our partnership. In North America, we have made a strategic commitment to assure we best serve the needs of Expedia and online travel companies in the U.S. and Canada.”

Notes to the editors:

About Expedia, Inc.

Expedia, Inc. is the largest online travel company in the world, with an extensive brand portfolio that includes some of the world's leading online travel brands, including:

• Expedia.com®, the world's largest full service online travel agency, with localized sites in 30 countries
• Hotels.com®, the hotel specialist with sites in more than 60 countries
• Leading discount travel site Hotwire®, which offers opaque deals in nine countries on its eight sites in North America and Europe
• Egencia®, the world's fifth largest corporate travel management company
• China's second largest booking site eLong™
• Leading agency hotel company Venere.com™
• Destination services and activities provider Expedia Local Expert®; and
• Luxury travel specialist Classic Vacations®

The company delivers consumers value in leisure and business travel, drives incremental demand and direct bookings to travel suppliers, and provides advertisers the opportunity to reach a highly valuable audience of in-market travel consumers through Expedia Media Solutions. Expedia also powers bookings for some of the world's leading airlines and hotels, top consumer brands, high traffic websites, and thousands of active affiliates through Expedia® Affiliate Network. (NASDAQ: EXPE)

For corporate and industry news and views, visit us at www.expediainc.com or follow us on Twitter @expediainc.

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. © 2012 Expedia, Inc. All rights reserved. CST: 2029030-50

About Amadeus

Amadeus is a leading transaction processor and provider of advanced technology solutions for the global travel and tourism industry.

Customer groups include travel providers (e.g. airlines, hotels, rail, ferries, etc.), travel sellers (travel agencies and websites), and travel buyers (corporations and individual travelers).

The group operates a transaction-based business model and processed more than 947 million billable travel transactions in 2011.

Amadeus has central sites in Madrid (corporate headquarters), Nice (development), and Erding (operations – data processing center) and regional offices in Miami, Buenos Aires, Bangkok, and Dubai. At a market level, Amadeus maintains customer operations through 73 local Amadeus Commercial Organizations covering 195 countries.

Amadeus is listed on the Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, and Valencia stock exchanges and trades under the symbol “AMS.MC”. For the year ended December 31, 2011, the company reported like-for-like revenues of €2,707 million and EBITDA of €1,039 million. The Amadeus group employs around 10,000 people worldwide, with 123 nationalities represented at the central offices.

To find out more about Amadeus, please visit www.amadeus.com.

To visit the Amadeus Investor Relations center, please www.investors.amadeus.com.