[London, ENGLAND] European online travel company ebookers.com
announced Monday that it intends to roll out a flight auctions
service across Europe, beginning in the second quarter this
year.
The announcement follows the signing of a memorandum of
understanding with technology infrastructure company capXnow.
The two firms have agreed a revenue sharing deal, with
capXnow meeting most of the development costs.
Dinesh Dhamija, chief executive of ebookers.com, noted
that ebookers.com already sells the full range of air fares,
including those at published airline rates as well as
negotiated discount fares and distressed or “last minute”
inventory.
“An agreement with capXnow will add a major new dimension to
our selling of distressed capacity. We believe that the way
the capXnow technology incorporates customer relationship
management technology will give us a significant advantage
over our competitors,” said Dhamija.
The move is clearly a major challenge to the best-known
late deals company, lastminute.com, which has itself invested
heavily in proprietary technology. In the competitive world
of selling air fares, “off-the-shelf” e-commerce software
is no longer good enough to keep an online travel company
ahead of the pack.
When the new system is in place, customers will see a maximum
price and be invited to submit bids on or below that amount.
However, the software will further benefit ebookers.com by
collecting customer data, which, together with push-marketing,
will enable the travel company to target customers with specific
tailored deals and price propositions.
Frank Wade, chief executive of capXnow, said that airline and
other travel industry suppliers would improve their yields and
maintain full control of the placement of their capacity when
the ebookers.com system is implemented.
“ebookers.com represents a critical component for the capXnow
system, making it even more productive for our suppliers,” said
Wade.
Founded in February 2000, capXnow has an international team
of 35 people based in Madrid. It develops software solutions
for producers of time-specific goods and services.
Listed on both the NASDAQ and the Neuer Markt, ebookers.com
operates in eleven countries: Denmark, Finland, France, Germany,
Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the
U.K.
