Amadeus and Telefonica Interactiva Forms Joint Venture for Travel E-commerce.MADRID--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 21, 1999-- Soon, Internet Users Internet user n → internauta m/f Internet user Internet n → internaute m/f in Spain, Portugal and Latin America Latin America, the Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies. Will be Able to Make Their Own Travel Arrangements Using the Web Amadeus, the global distribution and marketing system for travel, and Telefonica Interactiva, Telefonica's Internet unit, announced today their intent to join forces in the area of travel e-commerce. The two companies will create a 50-50 joint venture to sell travel and related services to consumers in the Spanish and Portuguese speaking markets, both in Europe and Latin America. The joint venture will provide information and booking services for air travel, hotel accommodation and car rental, enhanced by guides, destination services, bargain finder finder, in law. Ordinarily the finder of lost property is entitled to retain it against anyone except the owner. It is larceny, however, for the finder to keep the property if he knows or can easily determine who owns it. functionality and other travel related services. As an interactive site, it will also incorporate travelers' feedback. "Soon, Internet users in Spain, Portugal and Latin America will be able to make their own travel arrangements using the Web," says Juan Perea, Chairman & CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Telefonica Interactiva. "With Amadeus-the best possible partner for a project of this magnitude-we aim to provide our customers with a world-class purchasing experience." "While the Internet is a global phenomenon, consumers still have strongly expressed local preferences," says Jose Antonio Tazon, Amadeus President & CEO. "We wish to cater to these consumers in an optimal way by partnering with companies who, like Telefonica Interactiva, are recognized local players and fully understand local purchasing Local purchasing is a preference to buy locally produced goods and services over those produced more distantly. It is very often abbreviated as a positive goal 'buy local' to parallel the phrase think globally, act locally common in green politics. habits." The joint venture web sites will be closely associated with Telefonica Interactiva's offerings, such as portals and e-commerce ventures, but may be individually branded by market and customer segment. The joint venture owners are looking to incorporate local value-added partners, such as travel agencies and travel service providers, for each one of the local markets. Telefonica and Amadeus will also target the mobile phone users in the region through WAP (1) (Wireless Access Point) See access point. (2) (Wireless Application Protocol) A standard for providing cellular phones, pagers and other handheld devices with secure access to e-mail and text-based Web pages. (Wireless Access Protocol) technology, which permits Internet access See how to access the Internet. directly from a cellular phone. For Amadeus, the joint venture with Telefonica Interactiva is the second partnership of this nature, since signing an agreement with Grupo l'Espresso, Italy's largest newspaper publisher, in May 1999. Telefonica Interactiva is the leading provider of Internet access (ISP (1) See in-system programmable. (2) (Internet Service Provider) An organization that provides access to the Internet. Connection to the user is provided via dial-up, ISDN, cable, DSL and T1/T3 lines. ) and local-language interactive content and services in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world. Telefonica Interactiva currently provides Internet access services in Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Guatemala and Peru and operates Internet portals serving a total of half a dozen of countries. Telefonica Interactiva has more than 700,000 customers in the ISP business and more than 300 million pages viewed per month in its portal business. The company is a unit of Telefonica S.A., the parent company of the Telefonica Group. Amadeus today distributes travel products to the more than 10,000 travel agencies in 20 markets in the region of the joint venture. Active in more than 130 markets worldwide, Amadeus is the most global of the CRS CRS Course CRS Certified Residential Specialist (real estate certification) CRS Central Reservation System CRS Can't Remember Stuff (polite form) CRS Cost Reduction Strategy CRS Consumer Relations Specialist companies, serving 55,000 travel agencies and sales offices of more than 100 airlines. |
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