[June 16] European travel specialist
ebookers.com said
Friday it has entered a two-year WAP alliance with
Mviva, the mobile Internet portal announced this
week by Carphone Warehouse.
The deal will give ebookers.com pride of place
as the preferred supplier of travel services on
the Mviva portal which is due to launch later
in the summer.
AOL Europe has taken a 15 percent stake in
Mviva and has agreed to supply functionality,
content, and marketing for the venture. For
its part, Carphone Warehouse will put Mviva
on the mobile phones it sells in its
320 high street stores in the U.K.
Dinesh Dhamija, chief executive of ebookers.com,
said this latest deal was a perfect fit with
the company’s multi-channel access strategy.
“We believe that ebookers.com’s reputation for
value and service will make us a favorite site
for users of the new portal,” claimed Dhamija.
Speaking for Mviva, Managing Director Max Alexander
said that travel services would be a major focus
for the WAP portal.
“We are determined that Mviva will offer its customers
the best possible service, choice and content. Our
deal with ebookers.com will help us to achieve this aim,”
said Alexander.
ebookers.com has recently announced other WAP
deals, including a partnership with BT Cellnet
and its Genie Internet Services. It also has a
similar arrangement with France Telecom’s consumer
WAP service Itineris Services, and the WAP portal
Voila Mobile.
A frenzy of activity continues to take place
in the European WAP sector, tempered only by
occasional warnings that WAP can only deliver
a very pale version of Internet content.
Norway’s WAP information portal
wapland.com
said recently that a staggering 50 percent of
top European sites already offer a WAP version
for wireless surfers.
