Orbitz for Business today announced the launch of Orbitz for Business International, which enables local fulfillment and support in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, and the melding of its U.S. offerings.
Canada will go live before year-end, and Australia and the United Kingdom will follow in the first quarter of 2008. The online travel management company already has a presence in Canada with local fulfillment for clients using Travelport Classic, which will be converted to the new platform. Service centers in the United Kingdom and Lithuania will handle U.K. fulfillment. Local support for Australia has not been finalized yet, said Orbitz for Business COO and general manager Dean Sivley, who would not disclose the call center service provider except that it has a "global footprint."
The company also said that Travelport for Business will consolidate into Orbitz for Business. They will merge functionality through a common code base and share a common sales force and management team in the first quarter of 2008, according to Sivley.
The move into the international market was pushed by customer demand in North America and increasing travel management service consolidation by corporations, according to Sivley. "The larger accounts in the U.S. market are international if not global in nature and they have been after us for some time," he said. "The whole international focus is starting to take off within these corporations, where the people who have been predominately responsible just for the U.S. are now responsible for other markets."
The multinational offering positions Orbitz to go after some multinational accounts from which it previously had shied away, Sivley said. "There are many deals that we walk away from in North America because we do not have the capability, and although they may not have a lot of international requirements, they say they only want one agency and one tool for three or four markets, which now we will be able to serve, much like we did when we announced the onsite agents," he said
(BTNonline, Aug. 15).
The international platform is powered by the Galileo Traversa system, which Orbitz for Business licenses. Currently, Orbitz for Business uses the Galileo and Worldspan GDSs, but Sivley said the company is considering its European GDS content. "With those two, we have a great breadth and don't need to support any others," he said. "One could argue that, in certain markets in continental Europe, the one you require access to is Amadeus. We currently don't have any plans to do that, but that's one we will continue to look at."
While, Orbitz for Business is beginning its international point-of-sale offering in English-speaking countries, Sivley said there is an "intention to go to non-English speaking markets, but not immediately. The other markets are not as ripe right now to have a direct selling force as these markets. That is why we are not aggressively pushing into them, but we can support though our partner on the call center side and multilingual capabilities."