Travelocity, Yahoo Travel’s longtime travel partner, took back some real estate in Yahoo’s travel offering.
In penning a new, multiyear agreement with Yahoo, Travelocity continues to be Yahoo Travel’s exclusive air, car and hotel provider, but also usurps a couple of roles previously handled by Orbitz, and becomes Yahoo Travel’s exclusive vacation package and cruise vendor, as well.
Travelocity sources its cruise inventory directly from the cruise lines and uses ACS, based in Seattle, for cruise customer service.
The agreement — the financial terms of which were not disclosed — also enables consumers to view and share content, such as travel reviews posted to both to Yahoo and Travelocity, and paves the way for new “joint-marketing opportunities,” Travelocity says.
Travelocity spokesman Joel Frey says Travelocity doesn’t currently use Yahoo reviews and how they will be integrated on Travelocity.com remains to be determined.
Travelocity has been Yahoo Travel’s major travel partner since 1997, although the relationship has had its twists and turns, particularly when Yahoo acquired metasearch engine FareChase and made it the default search option on Yahoo Travel.
In early 2009, however, Yahoo shut down FareChase as CEO Carol Bartz went on a bing of closing what were deemed to be noncore operations.
While the financial terms of the new Yahoo-Travelocity deal were not detailed, in 2007, when Travelocity parent Sabre was still a public company and disclosed numbers for some agreements, Travelocity was obliged to pay Yahoo $32.8 million to be Yahoo Travel’s exclusive air, car and hotel provider.
Thanks for the information. I always like to track changes in the industry.