Helloworld website to transition as Orbitz agreement cut

Helloworld website to transition as Orbitz agreement cut

Helloworld has announced that the current helloworld.com.au site will transition to a new platform on 31 August 2016, cutting its Strategic Alliance Agreement with Orbitz Worldwide.

Helloworld CEO Andrew Burnes said that the strategic alliance between Helloworld and Orbitz had not delivered the revenue streams initially envisaged by both parties and had created too much conflict with Helloworld’s branded and associate members.

“While Helloworld.com.au, utilising the Orbitz technology, has been in one sense a success in that it attracted a lot of new online customers to the portal, the financial investment by Helloworld Limited in its development is over $18 million to date and between the ongoing losses of the .com operation and the channel conflict with the online site carrying the same brand as our branded and associate members, we have decided to transition the site to a more agent-aligned portal” Burnes said.

Burnes stands by his opinion that it is the groups’ responsibility to drive business in the door of our agency members, onto the phones of our agency members and onto the portals of our agency members including Helloworld.com.au.

“Our members should share in the commercial outcomes of those transactions in the same way. I stand by that view and consequently once we transition the site, Helloworld.com.au will continue to provide full transactional functionality for air, land, car hire and other travel products and services, however, from September the site will match the available microsites for our individual agencies and the commissions from bookings made on the site will be allocated to agencies in the same way as if a customer walked in the door, called, or sent an email booking” Burnes added.

The operation has been costing approximately $6m a year over the last two years plus capital expenditure.

Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

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