Sprice

Sprice.com partners with Hotels.com

Sprice.com, one of the world’s leading travel search engine, announced a partnership with Hotels.com, the global hotel specialist, which will offer travelers a choice of over 110,000 hotels worldwide on Sprice.com.

An online survey of over 5,500 travelers from eleven countries globally that was administered in August 2008 and jointly published by Visa International and the Pacific Asia Travel Association indicated that Asia Pacific continues to be the region of choice for leisure travelers with 64 percent of respondents stating that they have travelled to or within the region. Looking ahead for the next two years, Asia Pacific is expected to maintain its lead with 60 percent of respondents saying they plan to travel to the region. The research also found that three-quarters of all travelers prefer to plan their travel online, starting first with broad-based planning before zooming in on specific destinations for more focused research.

Said Johan Svanstrom, Managing Director Hotels.com Asia Pacific, “Asia’s popularity as a travel destination, and the growing number of Asian travelers, presents to us immense opportunities. Our partnership with Sprice.com will help us to leverage these opportunities and reach out to a wider segment of travelers, presenting them with accommodation options that meet a wide variety of preference and budget.”

Said Vikas Gulati, Vice President for Asia Pacific, Sprice.com, “As a leading real-time travel search portal, Sprice.com is excited by our partnership with Hotels.com. At Sprice.com, we aim to offer to travelers the range of choice at the lowest possible rates, and this partnership with Hotels.com will enable us to do just that.”

Published: Friday, 25 September 2009

www.etravelblackboardasia.com

Sprice.com has launched a new iPhone app which lets its customers worldwide book any of the 120,000 hotels in its inventory directly from their mobile phones.

Sprice Hotels can be accessed by iPhones of all generations including the new 3G phones, and is now available through Apple’s online App Store.

“The launch of our mobile application Sprice Hotels is a natural progression for our travel search engine as the pool of mobile users around the world to expand exponentially,” said Vikas Gulati, Sprice.com VP Asia Pacific.

“Sprice Hotels empowers travellers to make last-minute booking decisions, even as they are en route to their destinations,” he continues. “We are pleased to be working with Apple to extend such a powerful travel search tool to millions of iPhone users worldwide.”

Bookings and availabilities on Sprice Hotels is displayed in real-time, like the website, and users are able to query, research and book through the new app.

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Published: January 26, 2009

www.thehindubusinessline.com

Sprice.com, a real-time travel search engine which recently expanded its global footprint into India with the launch of a dedicated Web site, plans to launch its mobile application and holiday packages soon in the country.

“We will be launching our mobile application, essentially a social networking application while you are travelling, and also other services such as holiday packages in due course,” said Mr Vikas Gulati, Vice-President-Asia Pacific, Sprice.com, in an e-mail interview to Business Line.

India is absolutely central to the company’s plans in the Asia-Pacific and he hoped “to capitalise on the market’s vast opportunities for growth in the online travel industry” which is over $2 billion.

“We are currently servicing close to two lakh visitors a month in India and expect to achieve 1 million visitors a month by June. India will contribute at least 40 per cent of the APAC revenues,” he said. ‘Value’ product

On his product’s USP, Mr Gulati explained that from a user standpoint, there is tremendous value.

“Consider this, an average consumer checks 6 to 8 sources of information before making a purchase decision. Sprice.com aims to bring all these sources into one resource, allowing consumers to compare results from multiple sources on one single Web site.”

He added that the latest hotel application has also been launched in India that would enable users to search for the hotel of their choice.

Though most meta search players search for only lowest price offers, “consumers are not looking at price alone when it comes to the choice of stay,” he said. Revenues stream

On its business model, he said that the company adopts a neutral business model with revenues flowing in from sponsored links and advertising.

“As a marketing channel, we generate more than 600 bookings a day for our travel partners across the globe. We also power travel channels of some of the leading portals across the globe and work with them on unique revenue sharing basis,” he added.

In India, Sprice.com has partnerships with OneIndia.in and Express India group. The company hopes to soon announce a tie-up with one of the country’s leading portals.

Published: December 8, 2008

www.m-travel.com

Travel search engine Sprice.com has signed a partnership with ExpressIndia.com, the consumer portal for the Indian Express Group of Publications, to power its travel search.

ExpressIndia.com is the portal for the Indian Express Group of Publications and hosts IndianExpress.com, FinancialExpress.com, ScreenIndia.com, Loksatta.com and Lokprabha.com, besides running news feature sites like ExpressCricket.in, and KashmirLive.com.

Sprice would provide content to ExpressIndia.com for its "Hotel" section and power the search with "deep search travel technology".

There is also a "Find Reviews" feature that gives visitors access to reviews and photographs posted by other users and travellers.

In September, Sprice.com had launched a dedicated website for India. In October, it was in news for launching a US$750,000 digital marketing campaign across SE Asia and India.

Traveldailysia.com

9/2/2008 2:31:00 PM

1) With travel agents still dominating the Asian market, what trends are you noticing towards online booking engines such as Sprice.com?

There are a few key trends in the Asian travel search industry that Sprice.com has observed. The online travel market is becoming increasingly fragmented with ever more travel suppliers and OTAs. Also, consumers are searching more travel websites before purchase. This clearly indicates that online travel search engines, which allow users to find the best travel offers and information on a single website, is poised for huge growth in Asia. However, there is generally a lower level of awareness of travel meta search engines and their function among consumers and travel suppliers here. Sprice.com’s focus in Asia Pacific is to further drive consumer as well as industry awareness. We are targeting one million consumers per month in Asia Pacific by mid-2009. As the leading travel search engine in Europe, we expect to be equally successful in Asia Pacific as well.

2) How is Sprice.com able to achieve best available content and rates for its users?

Firstly, Sprice.com is the only truly global travel search engine that works with international as well as local travel agents. This means that users have access to a wider and more localised range of content. Secondly, Sprice.com also operates via a unique real-time deep-search mechanism. Often Internet users want to search for hotels, car, cruises and even spa packages. Sprice.com has an industry-first holiday package application that allows consumers the access to all that information on a single website. Currently, we are the only website globally to have this product successfully implemented in India. By combining rich and localised content with real-time deep-search technology, Sprice.com is gaining more consumer popularity. In turn, more travel suppliers around the world recognise us as an effective marketing tool.

3) What plans does Sprice.com have in targeting the lucrative mainland Chinese market, and what challenges do you face?

Sprice.com is focused on driving growth in our key markets, namely Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand, with Singapore. We are launching in India shortly and that is central to our plans in Asia. We are targeting to launch our China site between 2009 and 2010. While there is currently a low demand among Chinese users for travel search engines, Chinese is a lucrative travel market that has vast opportunities. The main challenge is to have the best content. That is why Sprice.com’s key objective is to develop rich content that is relevant to the local consumers. Sprice.com is the only international travel search engine capable to handle this content and this is due to our unique real-time deep-search technology.

4) Have you experienced difficulties with suppliers who want to drive traffic from their own websites (especially low-cost airlines)?

We are a travel search engine and a marketing tool for travel suppliers, rather than a competitor. Our strength stems from the fact that we are absolutely objective in our search results and consumers can expect a neutral response to the search results.

5) Sprice.com has come a long way in short space of time. What developments can we expect to see from Sprice.com in the future?

To continue our rapid expansion in Asia Pacific, we are building partnerships with leading portals to reach a wider audience. At the same time, we will continue to explore strategic partnerships with travel suppliers to further develop rich and highly-localised content. We are expecting to make more announcements relating to upcoming partnerships and consumer marketing programmes, and will share details with you when they are available. We are also looking to launch one of the world’s largest consumer-referral websites on hotels in Asia Pacific, as well as a mobile version of Sprice.com.

(PRLEAP.COM) August 8, 2007 (Sofia, Bulgaria and London, England)

Lessno.com, a new discount airfare website, today announced a distribution partnership with Sprice, a website specializing in the search and price comparison of travel. The partnership will enable Sprice.com users in the United Kingdom, Asia and the rest of Europe to access the lowest airfares to Eastern Europe, Japan and other destinations in Asia through Lessno.com.

Thousands of users log-on to Sprice every day to save time and money on trips around the world. The partnership will enable those users to get easy and immediate comparative access to more than 75 low-cost airlines available on Lessno.com.

Lessno.com was founded in April 2006, to address the void left by the disappearance of the neighborhood travel agent. With some of the best minds in business driving the company, the company has already been able to foster partnerships with the world’s best discount airlines, include 75 low cost airlines in Europe. Lessno.com has expanded from its original office in New York, New York, to offices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Sofia, Bulgaria.

"This partnership with Sprice is important to us because our customers are always looking for an independent source for the best airfares," said Assen Vassilev, co-founder of Lessno.com. "With the fairest fares in Europe and Asia, we look forward to providing Sprice’s customers with the same."

"As an independent discount travel website, Lessno.com is the kind of partner we look for at Sprice," said Pascal Bordat, co-founder of Sprice.com. "Their many low price options are just what our customers are looking for in their efforts to find the best and most affordable holidays. We look forward to a long partnership that benefits both our customers.”

About Sprice Sprice™.com is the first international travel meta-search site focusing on Europe and Asian markets. The Sprice team has a unique experience in both e-travel and search technology. Thanks to that experience Sprice users can search and find the best and most pertinent solutions to their needs for flights, hotels, car rental, holidays, holiday rentals, cruise etc. At the same time travel companies participating with Sprice.com enjoy a very powerful and cost efficient marketing channel for their products. For more information, visit www.sprice.com.

About Lessno.com Lessno.com is a joint venture of the Smart Travel Network and EZsearch. The company was founded as an independent discount travel website to offer fair fares to travelers. The experience of Smart Travel allows the company to negotiate special discounts directly with a number of airline partners and offer unbeatable airfares to the most loyal customers. The proprietary search technology of EZsearch makes finding these airfares fast and simple and saves customers time and money. For more information on Lessno.com, visit our website at www.lessno.com.

CONTACTS:

Scott Zilber

215.764.6027

szilber@lessno.com

Karine Pfohl

+33 388 32 22 65

karine.pfohl@sprice.com

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