Jet Airways Signs Agreement with Travelocity For Hotel Bookings

April 29, 2007 (PRLEAP.COM) Travel News
New Delhi/Mumbai, April 2007: Jet Airways, India's premier airline, and Travelocity, a global leader in online travel, today announced an exclusive travel agreement, which will lead to Travelocity’s highly successful hotel offerings being available through the Jet Airways website. This agreement will enable travellers to book hotels in India via the highly successful Jet Airways website: ‘Jetairways.com’

This hotel booking service, leveraging Travelocity's proprietary data base of hotels, will complement the enhanced air booking engine on Jetairways.com, which attracts over 1.25 million visitors per month.

The agreement between India’s premier airline and the sixth largest travel agency in the US represents an innovative and first-to-market initiative for Jet Airways to offer real-time hotel bookings online, in conjunction with Travelocity. This comes as part of Jet Airway’s growing commitment to offer customers more-than-air on its enhanced web site.

This also marks the first Travelocity Partner Network relationship announced in India, and it follows Travelocity India’s’ recent launch of the Travelocity.co.in site. The Indian travelling public will be able to access real-time online Indian hotel comparison shopping, and be able to progress to make instantly confirmed hotel bookings via Travelocity's tried and tested, secure technology via the Jet Airways site. Travellers, via the Jet Airways site, will also gain access to Travelocity’s range of value-added insider information on hotels which may include background information on the hotel, photographs, real traveller reviews, ratings, interactive maps and streaming videos.

Indian hotel suppliers participating in Travelocity’s ‘Net Rate’ hotel program can now broaden their online distribution for the first time via a major Indian airline website.

Gaurang Shetty, Vice President – Marketing, Jet Airways stated: “We are extremely pleased to be the first airline in India to embrace genuine real time online hotel bookings, and to be working with a world leader in online travel, Travelocity. Visitors to the Jet Airways site will be able to book hotels online with complete confidence, and be assured of instant booking confirmations in real-time while they are online thanks to Travelocity's behind-the-scenes innovation and choice of great hotel value and deals.”

Roshan Mendis, Director of Supplier Relations and Partnerships for the Travelocity group in Asia Pacific said: "Partnerships are a very important part of Travelocity’s global business. As our first Travel Partner deal in India, this new relationship represents a win-win arrangement for Jet Airways, Travelocity, hotel suppliers and Indian travellers. Our new business relationship with Jet Airways represents supplier confidence in, and a powerful endorsement of, our unparalleled hotel booking technology, range of hotels and customer service.”

About Travelocity:
Travelocity is the sixth largest travel agency in the U.S. – booking US$10.1 billion in travel worldwide in 2006 from its network of online travel sites globally. Based in Southlake, Texas, Travelocity also owns and operates Travelocity Business(SM) for corporate travellers, lastminute.com, a leader in European online travel and ZUJI, an online travel leader in Asia Pacific region. Travelocity is owned by Sabre Holdings Corporation, a world leader in travel commerce.

Travelocity’s 'Net Rate' hotel program offers hoteliers in India a cost-effective way to promote and market hotel rooms via the internet, be it via the Jet Airways site or other online channels to domestic and international travellers via Travelocity's global network of leading online travel sites in Asia Pacific (ZUJI), Europe (lastminute.com) and in North America. Travelocity has been adding Indian hotels to its ‘Net Rate’ hotel program, comprising more than 30,000 net rate hotels, since May 2006.

About Jet Airways:
Jet Airways currently operates a fleet of 62 aircraft with 49 classic and next generation Boeing 737-400/700/800/900 aircraft, 3 Airbus A340-300E aircraft, 2 Airbus A330-200 aircraft and 8 modern ATR 72-500 turboprop aircraft. With an average fleet age of 5.3 years, the airline has one of the youngest aircraft fleets in the world. Jet Airways operates over 340 daily flights to 50 destinations that span the length and breadth of India and beyond, including London Heathrow in U.K., Singapore, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Colombo in Sri Lanka, Bangkok in Thailand and Kathmandu in Nepal. The airline plans to extend its international operations to North America, Europe, Africa and Asia in the coming years with the induction of wide-body aircraft into its fleet in 2007. Since inception in May 1993 until end-March 2007, Jet Airways has flown over 71 million passengers.

For further information:
Jet Airways
A.K.Sivanandan
Sr.GM – Public Relations
Jet Airways (India) Ltd.
Tel: +91-11-2652 3357
Fax: +91-11-2685 7312
asivanandan@jetairways.com
Ms.Srirupa Sen
Manager - Public Relations
Jet Airways (India) Ltd.
Tel: +91-22 -2852 3648
Fax: +91- 22- 29205878
ssen@jetairways.com

Travelocity (‘ZUJI’ in Asia Pacific)
Ms. Kim Stockham
Director, Corporate Affairs (Asia Pacific)
Mobile: +61-4-409580644 (Australia-based)
kim.stockham@zuji.com Travelocity India
Siddhartha Singh
Marketing Manager
Mobile: +91-9223353653
siddhartha.singh@travelocity.co.in


Indian hotels wanting to offer their hotels online via Jetairways.com or via other Travelocity online sites can contact Travelocity’s hotel team by email on
hotelrelations_india@travelocity.co.in