ECT Plans Full-Service Travel Agency In Germany

Expedia Corporate Travel in the fall plans to open a full service agency in Germany to complement existing agencies in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and France, the company announced last month. Of the three Internet-based travel management companies, ECT now has the largest multinational presence and is the first to expand to this region of Europe.

Headquartered in Munich, Expedia Corporate Travel Germany vowed to be a fully integrated off- and online agency, offering the same technology and services as in the United States, United Kingdom and France, such as an international rate desk, phone-based reservations and customer support. Omar Ahmad, managing director of Expedia Corporate Travel Canada, said the company's German counterpart will have a full account management team targeted toward not just German-based companies, but multinational companies with German travelers as well. Though ECT currently services customers in the country, it does so out of a pan-European center in Brussels, which services customers in the European countries where ECT has no presence.

"It's a market that's got a high demand for technology and service," Ahmad said. "Online adoption rates are pretty high there, so most major travel management companies are working in Germany and our customers are telling us that's the next place we need to be in."

Jean-Pierre Remy, president of Expedia Corporate Travel Europe, is leading the new launch, managing the product development, marketing, supplier relations, operations and sales efforts of ECT Germany. Ahmad declined to specify whether ECT acquired an agency in Germany or is building the agency from the ground up, noting full details will be available in the fall.

Two out of the past three times, ECT opted to acquire. In 2004, the company bought London-based World Travel Management (BTNonline, Sept. 2, 2004) and Paris-based Egencia (BTNonline, March 24, 2004), with operations also in Belgium and the United Kingdom. ECT Canada launched as a new full-service agency earlier this year (BTNonline, Jan. 31).

ECT executives wouldn't speculate as to where the TMC might expand next. "That's an interesting question," Ahmad said. "In the last four years, we've gone from essentially zero to eight countries and we're going to continue our growth in a smart and targeted fashion. Germany came out of a request from a number of corporations that we currently do business with, as well as a lot of requests from corporations based in Germany who are familiar with ECT or Expedia in general. There may be additional European markets and certainly agencies worth considering, but it's really going to be determined by where our costumers are and where the opportunities are."

Ahmad said ECT is seeing aggressive growth across its entire network. "It's pretty consistent," he said. "Canada is growing a lot, but that's because we started from zero and our more established business in the U.K., France and the U.S. are doing extremely well."