Travelport to support global shipping industry in new deal
By Samson Echenim
Travelport, a leading technology company serving the global travel and tourism industry, has announced that it has been awarded a new long-term technology contract by Eurasia Travel Network (ETN), a marine and corporate travel agency, to support the shipping industry.
The marine industry is responsible for around 90 percent of global trade and the new deal comes just a few months after ETN, a subsidiary of Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM), entered into a new joint venture of its own to provide specialized maritime travel services for the energy, resources and marine sectors.
As part of its agreement with ETN, Travelport will continue to provide real-time access to a broad range of high-quality content from more than 400 airlines, hundreds of thousands of hotel properties and over 37,000 car rental locations worldwide. ETN and its partners will continue to benefit from Travelport’s market-leading search, automation, shopping and booking technologies; data, business logic and profiling functionalities via a single platform.
Damiano Sabatino, vice president and managing director of Key Account Management for Europe at Travelport, said: “The international shipping industry is a highly-complex operation that often requires crew, technical and executive travelers to be able to move quickly and efficiently between multiple locations around the globe. Having access to advanced technological solutions that provide planners and travel management companies with enhanced visibility, control and flexibility, has been crucial for our travel partners in the maritime sector. We are delighted to extend our relationship with ETN.”
Established in 1994, ETN manages a portfolio of clients that includes ship managers, ship owners and offshore service organisations, as well as other non-marine corporations. The company has offices and affiliates in six countries and supports more than 25,000 seafarers servicing over 750 vessels worldwide.
Yiannis Sykas, BSM director of Strategy and Product Development, said: “We are proud to welcome Travelport on board as our strategic partner, reinforcing one of our key strategic objectives, which is innovation. We have a deep understanding of what customers in the shipping industry need and we are sure that with Travelport we will be able to offer an exceptional experience of buying and managing travel for everyone through one platform.”
The agreement between Travelport and ETN will cover the needs of travelers on a global scale, extending a relationship that has existed between the two companies for more than 15 years.