HOTELMARKETING.COM

Lastminute.com powers hotel bookings at Iberia.com

February 12, 2004 |

UK based Online travel firm lastminute.com has announced a white label deal that will see it provide online hotel bookings for Spain's national airline Iberia.

Online travel firm lastminute.com has announced a white label deal that will see it provide online hotel bookings for Spain’s national airline Iberia.

The company, which did not reveal financial details of the deal, said the service is already live at [url=http://www.hotelesib.com]http://www.hotelesib.com[/url].

The deal further extends lastminute’s reach in Spain, following the repurchase of its Spanish business from joint venture partner Sol Meliá in September 2003. Iberia.com is the largest online travel site in Spain with 125,000 unique users per day and reported EU80m revenue in 2002.

Customers to iberia.com will now be able to directly access lastminute.com’s comprehensive database of hotels with relevant offers in each of Iberia’s flight destinations around the world.

Lastminute has recently expanded its hotel database through several acquisitions and partnerships, including buying up UK hotel booking agency First Option Hotel Reservations for £12.1m in January and UK hotel consolidator and package holiday reseller Med Hotels for £16.1m in December.

Last week, the company said it would continue its strategy of growth by acquisition over the next few months despite reporting wider net losses for the first quarter.

The company also hopes to sign further white label deals. It announced similar white label partnerships in 2003 with Tesco.com and Egg in the UK, Fnac in France and said it expects to announce others in the future.

However, lastminute is not alone in pushing itself as a third-party technology and services provider; its two biggest UK rivals, Online Travel Corp and ebookers, are also going aggressively after this market. 

Visit our sponsors: