Business Travel
globenewswire | August 17, 2023
Mondee Holdings, Inc. the high-growth, travel technology company and marketplace, with a portfolio of globally recognized platforms in the leisure and corporate travel sectors, today announced the acquisition of Skypass Travel, Inc. (“Skypass”), a global full-service retail and wholesale provider of corporate, leisure, and humanitarian travel, based in the Dallas, Texas area.
The acquisition of Skypass supports Mondee's ongoing expansion and diversification endeavors, encompassing markets that serve both personnel and affiliates from international corporations, small and midsize businesses (SMBs), as well as humanitarian organizations. Skypass maintains domestic offices in the Dallas, Texas area and Austin, Texas. Furthermore, it boasts a global footprint through its international offices located in Latin America (LATAM), Mexico, Canada, and India.
Skypass achieved a gross revenue of $45 million and adjusted EBITDA of $4 million, representing a margin on net revenue of approximately 60%, in 2022. At closing, Mondee paid a consideration of approximately $15 million, comprised of cash and Mondee common stock priced at $10 per share. Additionally, the agreement allows for a potential future earn-out opportunity of shares of Mondee common stock, contingent upon the achievement of specified annual adjusted EBITDA growth targets.
With a 35-year operating history, Skypass enjoys a leading position in the international corporate travel sector. Its focus is directed toward providing travel services to sizable international consulting firms and SMBs. In addition to air travel and lodging, Skypass extends its services to encompass cruises, vacation packages, and humanitarian travel, catering to the personnel, associates, and the wider retail travel demographic.
Following the successful acquisitions of Consolid, Orinter and Interep, Mondee is poised to strategically advance the distribution of Skypass's travel-related offerings. Skypass’s expansion may be facilitated through Mondee’s extensive network, which comprises over 65,000 travel experts and a membership of 125 million individuals within closed groups. Furthermore, the acquisition increases Mondee’s reach of local, regional and global content.
Mondee's strategic approach involves harnessing its exclusive AI-Powered Travel Marketplace and cutting-edge technology. Simultaneously, the Company intends to introduce enhancements in services that may target Skypass’s clientele and generate additional revenue, including FinTech solutions and supplementary services. Moreover, Mondee is committed to streamlining expenditures across its global operational framework, with the aim of realizing substantial synergies in both top-line and bottom-line performance.
Mondee’s Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Prasad Gundumogula, stated, “We are thrilled to extend a warm welcome to Victor Abraham, CEO of Skypass, and his experienced management team as valued members of the Mondee family and look forward to helping provide their customers with access to our AI-Powered Travel Marketplace, as well as additional products and services. We have every confidence they will continue to grow the business actively within their served markets. This acquisition underscores our commitment to diversifying our distribution to SMBs and international corporate accounts along with geographical expansion into India, Mexico, and LATAM.”
Skypass’s CEO Victor Abraham, shared, “The entire Skypass team is excited to join the Mondee family and work towards unlocking the global growth potential of our combined offerings and capabilities. We look forward to leveraging Mondee's cutting-edge AI-Powered Marketplace and industry-leading expertise to enhance our customers' travel experiences. With our shared commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction, we are confident that together we can redefine the travel industry.”
About Mondee
Founded in 2011,Mondeeis a travel technology company and a modern travel marketplace based in Austin, Texas. The Company operates 17 offices across the United States and Canada and has core operations in India, Thailand, and Greece. Mondee is driving change in the leisure and corporate travel sectors through its broad array of innovative solutions. Available both as an app and through the web, the Company’s platform processes over 50 million daily searches and generates a substantial transactional volume annually. The Mondee Marketplace includes access to Abhi, the most powerful and only fully-integrated AI travel planning assistant in the market. Mondee’s network includes approximately 65,000 leisure travel advisors, freelancers and influencers, 500+ airlines, and over one million hotels and vacation rentals, 30K rental car pickup locations, 50+ cruise lines. The Company also offers packaged solutions and ancillary offerings that serve a global customer base.
Read More
Business Travel
businesswire | August 03, 2023
AlertMedia, the world’s leading provider of threat intelligence, emergency communication, and travel risk management solutions, today launched an integration with Concur Travel. The integration allows joint AlertMedia and Concur Travel customers the ability to automatically sync travel data from Concur® Travel into AlertMedia Travel Risk Management, providing travel risk and security teams a real-time view of employees’ locations while traveling for work along with a powerful suite of tools to prepare employees ahead of business trips, monitor emerging travel risks, and respond quickly to keep travelers out of harm’s way.
“The volume of business trips continues to grow, and more trips mean more risk for organizations—for the traveler and the business itself,” said Christopher Kenessey, CEO of AlertMedia. “Our integration with Concur Travel provides organizations a seamless, unified interface designed to help minimize travel-related risks, rapidly communicate critical information, and protect their most valuable assets—their people—in a world that is constantly changing.”
Available to customers worldwide, the AlertMedia turnkey integration with Concur Travel drastically reduces the time required to identify, correlate, and respond to travel risks that may impact active trips or upcoming trips. Additional benefits include:
Frictionless travel data management: Unify travel safety and risk management workflows within a single pane of glass to enable a faster, more consistent response.
Accurate, non-invasive location monitoring: Know where your traveling employees are at all times and their proximity to emerging risks with the AlertMedia mobile app and powerful mapping features.
Automatic, multichannel notifications to at-risk travelers: Accelerate response times to critical events with automated, multichannel notifications sent directly to impacted travelers or security teams.
AlertMedia Travel Risk Management is now available in the SAP Concur App Center.
About AlertMedia
AlertMedia helps organizations protect their people and business through all phases of an emergency. Our award-winning threat intelligence, emergency communication, and travel risk management solutions help companies of all sizes identify, respond to, and recover from critical events faster and with greater confidence. AlertMedia supports critical communication for thousands of leading businesses—including DHL, JetBlue, Coca-Cola Bottling, In-N-Out, and Walmart—in more than 130 countries.
Read More
Travel Technology
prnewswire | July 06, 2023
Trip.com Group, a leading travel service provider and Tourism New Zealand, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to promote New Zealand as a key tourism destination in Asia Pacific.
Trip.com Group's Vice President of Destination Marketing & Strategy Alliances, Edison Chen, and Tourism New Zealand's Board Chairman, Jamie Tuuta, in the presence of New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, signed the MOU. The Prime Minister is currently on a working visit to China.
As part of the collaboration, both parties will launch a series of joint marketing campaigns to attract tourists from Asia Pacific to New Zealand. The markets include the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Australia. This will involve the creation of appealing and attractive travel itineraries and experiences to meet specific visitor needs, positioning New Zealand as a destination of choice for travellers.
This partnership marks the first Asia Pacific pan-regional collaboration for both sides.
Edison Chen, Vice President of Destination Marketing & Strategy Alliances, at Trip.com Group said, "With the reopening of China's border, we have seen a marked increase in outbound travel-related bookings and searches in the recent months. We look forward to collaborating with Tourism New Zealand to leverage our resources and deep data insights to boost New Zealand tourism development, fully optimising the travel experience for tourists in New Zealand."
"With the resurgence of international travel post-pandemic, this collaboration could not be better for both parties involved."
Data from Trip.com Group's Ctrip and Trip.com platforms show a keen interest in travel in Asia Pacific, including New Zealand.
Specifically, searches for flights to New Zealand have seen a significant increase of nearly 560% year-on-year, and the volume of bookings was up over 570% compared to the same period last year.
The Chinese mainland was the top source of arrivals to New Zealand in the first half of this year, followed by other key markets, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Thailand, and South Korea, making the top 10 list.
Tourism New Zealand's Chief Executive, René de Monchy said, "Through the partnership, Tourism New Zealand aims to provide Asia Pacific travellers with more convenient booking methods, personalised itinerary planning, and comprehensive service support. We look forward to welcoming travellers to deeply explore the beautiful landscapes and unique culture of Aotearoa New Zealand, as well as experience our manaakitanga."
About Tourism New Zealand
Tourism New Zealand is responsible for promoting New Zealand in key markets as a visitor destination.Tourism New Zealand is the organisation responsible for marketing New Zealand as a holiday destination. The major tool we use to do this is the 100% Pure New Zealand marketing campaign, a campaign that has evolved over the past decade to make New Zealand one of the world's most well-respected tourism brands.
About Trip.com Group
Trip.com Group is a leading global travel service provider comprising of Trip.com, Ctrip, Skyscanner and Qunar. Across its platforms, Trip.com Group helps travellers around the world make informed and cost-effective bookings for travel products and services and enables partners to connect their offerings with users through the aggregation of comprehensive travel-related content and resources, and an advanced transaction platform consisting of apps, websites and 24/7 customer service centres. Founded in 1999 and listed on NASDAQ in 2003 and HKEX in 2021, Trip.com Group has become one of the best-known travel groups in the world, with the mission "to pursue the perfect trip for a better world".
Read More