Читать книгу Global Experience Industries - Jens Christensen - Страница 30

Just like Sabre was disengaged from American Airlines during the 1990s, the distribution system Galileo was separated from its mother companies United Airlines, British Airways and KLM, as was Worldspan from Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines.⁴¹ Galileo was taken over by investor companies, first Cendant and renamed Travelport.⁴² Travelport includes the distribution system Galileo, the online travel agencies Orbitz and eBookers as well as the wholesale travel provider Gulliver’s Travel Associates. By the end of 2006, the travel and tourism activities of Cendant were spun-off to the investor company Blackstone Group. At the same time, Blackstone acquired Worldspan, owned by Worldspan Technologies. The two companies merged to form a stronger Travelport, becoming thereby the world’s largest distribution system in addition to its leading online travel agencies.⁴³

Merged Travelport and Worldspan complement each other well. Worldspan is a world leader in IT and web-solutions for travel distributors and intermediaries, covering more than half the world’s online transactions of the travel and tourism industry. Most of Worldspan’s revenues originate from the USA. In reverse, Travelport, of which Galileo is the largest part, receives most of its revenues from outside the USA. Concerning online travel agencies, Orbitz is strong in the USA and eBookers in Western Europe. The new Travelport has annual revenues of almost $4 billion. Tens of thousands of travel agencies around the world, hundreds of airlines and several car rental companies, cruise ships and railway companies, etc. depend on the travel information and solutions of Travelport.