>> A new website targeting the leisure-group travel market is launched, Groople (www.groople.com) will cater to groups of five or more travelers, such as wedding parties. Groople will be able to book 20 or more people at a time. Initially, it will focus on hotel reservations and will add airline tickets and rental cars later.
>> Cendant Corporation acquired all the common stock of Trip Network also know as Trip.com. As part of the integration, Cendant will position Cheap Tickets as its primary consumer brand and phase out the Trip.com brand from the leisure travel market. (04/03/03)
>> A review of Orbitz by the Transportation Department’s Office of the Inspector General found no “substantive evidence” that the online agency’s most favored nation clause has resulted in monopolistic or anticompetitive behavior by its airline owners or its charter associates. The review also found no evidence that Orbitz has deviated from its commitment to offer unbiased displays of fares and air services. (01/03/2003)
>> Expedia began charging a $5 booking fee for most airline tickets purchased on its U.S. website. However, it is waiving the fee for airline tickets purchased as part of packages. (12/05/02)
>> Northwest Airlines and Expedia settled their dispute and reached an agreement under which the airline's tickets could now be purchased through Expedia's website. (10/22/02)
>> Northwest Airlines fares will no longer be available at Expedia.com starting October 1st, 2002. (10/01/02)
>> Delta Air Lines will begin selling its tickets through Hotwire. (08/29/02)
>> Trip.com will start selling time-share vacation packages with the launch of it's packaging engine that will enable travelers to search for and book packages with airline, time-share stays and car rentals. (06/11/02)
>> Lowestfare.com announces that it will end it's airline ticketing-selling operation, which includes Airline tickets, Car renatals and Hotel reservations, effective May 2, 2002. It will now focus on it vacations packages and cruise bookings. (05/02/02)
>> Opodo launched its third site, this time for French travellers. (04/17/02)
>> Online travel portal Opodo signs an exclusive deal with Holiday Autos to provide a new online car rental service. (02/27/02)
>> Travelocity and 17 airlines serving Japan will introduce an online travel site for Japan on March 26. The site, tabini, joins similar Travelocity ventures in Europe and Asia. The participating airlines include Japan's top three: Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Japan Air Systems. (03/14/02)
JANUARY 2002
>> Opodo launched
its second site, this time for UK travellers. (01/22/02)
>> Orbitz, the airline-owned travel website, will begin charging users a $5 service fee per airline ticket sold. For 2-4 tickets the fee is capped at $10. Orbitz said that for a limited time it will waive the fee "one time per customer". (12/05/01)
>> Opodo, the new online travel company backed by nine of Europe’s leading airlines (Aer Lingus, Air France, Alitalia, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, KLM and Lufthansa) launched its first website for German travellers. (11/30/01)
>> Biztravel, one of the pioneers in internet travel will cease operations effective September 21, 2001. Biztravel attributes the downfall to the economic downturn which grounded most business travel plans and the further-reduced demand for travel resulting from the tragedy of September 11, 2001. (09/21/01)
>> ZUJI is the name of a new travel website being developed by Travelocity and 11 Asia/Pacific airlines. According to Travelocity, the name is a Mandarin derivation of "footprint." (08/21/01)
>> Travelocity was named the Best Commerce web site at the 5th Annual Webby Awards. Nominnes in the Commerce category included CafePress.com, GORPtravel.com, Half.com and mySimon. In the Travel category, Expedia was named the Best Travel web site, while Frommers.com was the People's Voice winner, nominees included iExplore, IgoUgo and Bestfares.com. (07/20/01)
>> USA Networks purchases majority stake in online travel site Expedia, which has been owned by Microsoft. The company also acquired online cruise and vacation package service National Leisure Group. USA Networks plans to launch a new cable channel dedicated to travel called USA Travel Channel, using Expedia as its online foundation and NLG's vacation packages and services to manage its travel sales. (07/16/01)
>> Nine of Europe's leading airlines (Aer Lingus, Air France, Alitalia, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, KLM, Lufthansa) announce plans to create an online travel portal similar to Orbitz, the U.S. online travel portal formed earlier this year by several U.S. carriers. Opodo, the name of the portal will launch later this year selling flights and other travel products direct to the consumer. (06/26/01)
>> Southwest Airlines tickets are no longer available through Travelocity, following customer service concerns that were not resolved by March 1st, 2001. Southwest will now only sell tickets via their own site. (03/5/2001)
>> Travelocity announced that it will start charging a $10 service fee on all Northwest and KLM tickets, effective March 1, 2001. This move comes after Northwest and KLM eliminated the commissions paid to all online travel agents. (02/28/01)
>> eGulliver.com announces a strategic relationship that will give Expedia.com customers access to eGulliver's network of 1,000 plus travel Specialists dedicated to complex travel planning. Customers will be able to link directly from Expedia.com to the eGulliver.com site to work with travel specialists. As part of the relationship, Expedia.com will take an equity position in eGulliver. (09/25/00)
>> In separate business transactions, Expedia.com agrees to acquire two major players in the internet travel lodging business, Travelscape.com and VacationSpot.com. With these two acquisitions, Expedia.com also gets the following lodging related websites, Las Vegas Reservations Systems (http://www.lvrs.com) from Travelscape and Rent-a-Holiday.com (http://www.rent-a-holiday.com) from Vacationspot.com. (01/31/00)