After terminating their exclusive agreement with Expedia just over 3 months ago, Ryanair announced a new partnership with Booking.com, Europe’s largest and fastest growing online hotel reservation service. Ryanair’s passengers can now gain access to Booking.com’s inventories of over 57,000 hotels in more than 15,000 destinations in Europe and beyond.

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Following a recent move of Expedia, which is trialling using Google’s adwords’ sponsored links next to their travel search results, other major online travel agents are considering their options to further monetize their websites. According to Travolution, online travel agents have not ruled out following Expedia’s example but are also not sure of allowing competitors to advertise through their own website.

There is doubt whether sponsored links will result in increased revenues or instead result in higher exit percentages. In reality, these sponsored links have strict exclusions for competitors and thus these sponsored links will have low relevance, resulting in lower click through percentages.

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Expedia and Marriott International today released a press statement announcing a new multi-year agreement that extends one of the longest running partnerships in the online travel industry.

Without being aware of any details, this arrangement provides Marriott properties access to Expedia’s extensive targeted promotional and merchandising opportunities to reach travelers throughout Europe, Asia and North America. Marriott’s properties also benefit from direct access to Expedia’s global travel marketplace through ExpediaConnect, the technology solution for chain hotels to connect directly into Expedia’s global marketplace.

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In a press release Tripadvisor announced it now features more than 20 million traveler reviews and opinions, up from 15 million earlier this year and 5 million two years ago. Tripadvisor also experienced rapid growth in the number of registered members, which increased from more than 5 million in January 2008 to over 9 million today.

With Tripadvisor domains now being available in India and Japan, Tripadvisor is now operating in 8 countries outside the United States. More than half of Tripadvisor’s 25 million unique monthly visitors come from outside the United States. Tripadvisor is also expected to launch their service in China in the coming months.

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Europe’s biggest low cost carrier Ryanair today released a press statement in which they confirm that they have given a 30 days notice to Expedia that its exclusive hotel contract will end, following Expedia’s failure to honor payment terms.

Ryanair
The agreement between Ryanair and Travelscape gave Expedia exclusive rights to sell hotel accommodation on Ryanair.com (Europe’s largest travel website) and gave Expedia on-line access to Ryanair’s 58 million annual passengers.

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