Galileo achieves Significant Growth in Supplier Content in Asia Pacific

Since January 2007, Galileo has enhanced the air and non-air content it makes available to its connected travel agents by signing distribution or functionality agreements with some of Asia Pacific’s leading airlines and hotel chains. This content will be further enhanced by Travelport’s purchase of Worldspan last week, as the complementary strengths of both Galileo and Worldspan should bring greater offerings to suppliers and subscribers in the future.

In the first eight months of this year, the GDS has signed content distribution agreements with a low cost carrier and a new Myanmar based airline; renewed partnerships with six leading Asia Pacific based full service carriers which collectively operate more than 500 aircrafts and serve up to 75,000 million passengers per year; and implemented e-ticketing on over 30 Asian airlines including Air India, Air China, Hainan Airlines, Malaysian Airlines, Philippine Airlines, Shandong Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Vietnam Airlines and Xiamen Airlines.

Globally to date, Galileo has content and distribution agreements with over 470 airline carriers and some 75 low cost carriers, and implemented e-ticketing on over 183 airlines in 94 countries. On average, three out of four tickets are issued electronically, representing 77.5% of total tickets issued on Galileo and Apollo. As a direct result of e-ticketing, Galileo is estimated to be saving around 14 acres of forest per month.

Brad Holman, President and Managing Director, Asia Pacific, Galileo by Travelport, said, “Providing competitive airline content to our travel agency customers is a top priority at Galileo and we are pleased to note that we are consistently delivering on this key requirement. The first half of the year saw us fostering stronger partnerships with leading Asian Pacific carriers, which builds on our already extensive breadth of global travel content to provide competitive and accurate fares and inventory via our GDS. In addition, we pride ourselves on our ability to provide unique value propositions namely, extensive global reach, innovative technology and customized solutions to our airline partners.” efficiencies,” said Holman.

In the area of hotel services, Galileo's ‘Best Available Rates’ (BAR) programme has over 150 hotel brands participating, representing more than 30,000 properties in 74 countries. So far, a total of 18 prominent hotel chains had signed up to this  programme this year, including key Asian based chains like Marco Polo Hotels, ANA Hotels International, Langham Hotels International and Pacific International Hotels. They join other major hotel chains such as Meritus Hotels & Resorts; Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts; Oberoi Hotels & Resorts; Raffles Hotels & Resorts; Mandarin Oriental Hotels Group; and Millennium & Copthorne which are currently on the BAR programme.

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