London, 2012-10-1 — /travelprnews.com/ — Expedia® Affiliate Network (EAN) announced its partnership with New Zealand’s Travelbug (www.travelbug.co.nz) today, one of the country’s most successful OTAs. The deal will see EAN powering Travelbug’s international hotels offering, as the site expands from its current domestic focus to sell hotels in destinations worldwide.
Travelbug is using the latest version of EAN’s state-of-the-art private-label retail platform, Chameleon®, which will afford consumers a fast, intuitive shopping experience, and access to almost 155,000 hotels worldwide. Travelbug selected EAN and the Chameleon platform after a competitive RFP involving other players in the OTA affiliate space. The superior flexibility of the Chameleon platform was a key factor in the decision.
Benoit Jolin, VP Product and Marketing at Expedia Affiliate Network, said, “Travelbug is one of New Zealand’s homegrown digital success stories, so we’re thrilled that our Chameleon platform will be powering its exciting expansion into international hotel bookings, offering a fast, robust browsing and booking experience to meet the needs of Travelbug’s customers.”
Daniel Bridges, Head of Travel at Trade Me, said, “This deal is good news for our customers. It means they can now use Travelbug to book hotels from New Plymouth to New York, but if they have any queries or questions we’re only a local phone call away.”
Travelbug is part of the Trade Me family of websites, the online marketplace and classifieds business which now serves around 65% of New Zealand webpages, and caters to a wide variety of consumers’ retail needs. Last year, more than 1 million people bought or sold something on Trade Me.
Trade Me relaunched the homepage and navigation of its main site this month, making Travelbug more prominent. Consumers are now able to book Travelbug hotels directly from the Trade Me homepage for the first time.
About Expedia Affiliate Network
Expedia Affiliate Network (EAN) is part of Expedia, Inc., the world’s leading online travel company. EAN creates the tools and technology that help millions of travellers find the perfect hotels for their next trips. EAN works with over 10,000 partners in 33 countries to turn their web traffic into hotel bookings and happy customers. For more information on EAN visit www.ean.com. Expedia, Expedia Affiliate Network, Chameleon and the Airplane logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Expedia, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other trademarks mentioned herein may be the property of their respective owners. ©2012 Expedia, Inc. All rights reserved. CTS # 2029030-50
About Travelbug
Travelbug is a Trade Me website, with the largest range of New Zealand accommodation of all types, from camping grounds and backpacker hostels to motels, hotels and luxury lodges. Travelbug has more than 3,000 NZ accommodations and activity options in NZ’s tourism hotspots, and a wealth of verified accommodation reviews to help keep travellers informed. Using the EAN platform the site now has an additional 155,000 worldwide accommodation options. Visit www.travelbug.co.nz to see the site in action.
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