Travelport Launches New Agents Leisure Portal

Travelport, which operates both the Galileo and Worldspan GDS systems, has announced details of its new, one stop leisure portal for travel agents. Known as Travelport Leisure, the new travel trade portal is an upgraded version of its former Galileo Leisure portal which was first launched in 2005.

The company said it took the decision to invest further in its Galileo Leisure offering in response to the ongoing growth potential of global leisure travel spend which is expected to reach around $700 billion by 2014.

“Our partners in the travel trade told us they liked using Galileo Leisure but wanted an even greater choice of content and we have responded to their feedback,” Jane Lewis, vice president of land and sea for Travelport said. “We are seeing some very encouraging signs that leisure travel spend has really picked up again and much of this spend will be on non-air related products such as hotels and car hire. We believe this upgraded leisure booking tool is a logical way to work with the travel trade to take advantage of this significant opportunity and make booking leisure content and earning revenues on it even easier.”

The Travelport Leisure portal, which now includes extensive new hotel, hostel, B&B and car options as well as new functionality to add localized content at a country level, will be rolled out globally from June 2010. Like its predecessor, it will continue to be free of charge to use for all travel agents, even if they do not subscribe to a Travelport GDS.

Incorporating all of Galileo Leisure’s existing hotel content, which includes GTA’s 35,000 hotels, Travelport Leisure will also give agents access to new content from a range of well-known, market leading leisure suppliers.

These include:

*    HotelClub by Orbitz – 57,000 hotels in 5,600 cities worldwide. HotelClub offers discount rates and deals, and instant confirmation for travelers in the United States, Asia-Pacific and throughout Europe.
*    Kuoni Connect – 15,000 hotels in more than 1,800 destinations with a portfolio of boutique/design, international brands and beach hotels. Coming soon to Travelport Leisure will be transfers, sightseeing, destination packages, concierge services and escorted tours.
*    Hostelworld.com – Leader in the budget bed sector with over 24,000 properties in 186 countries and over 7,000 destinations, the properties include hostels, B&Bs, apartments, guesthouses,  campsites and budget hotels.
*    Cars by TUI – Part of TUI Travel PLC, Cars by TUI is a major car rental aggregator with over 130 car rental partners worldwide. It offers best available rates for international suppliers such as Hertz, Avis, Europcar, and Sixt in addition to many local partners.

In addition, Travelport Leisure will continue to offer features provided by GTA such as interactive city maps and useful travel information such as weather reports, hotel reviews, news, visa requirements and destination guides to aid agents during the sales process.

Visit www.travelportleisure.com.