WebBeds parent company, Webjet Limited today announced it has agreed to acquire a Canadian based travel technology company Trip Ninja. Trip Ninja has developed several key products for traditional and online travel agencies to automate the highly manual process of selling complex international itineraries.
FareStructure is a technology that automates the combining of fares from carriers that do not have a cooperation or codeshare agreement in order to give customers the best priced itinerary. Traditionally a fairly manual process, Trip Ninja is able to produce these results in seconds. For traditional travel agents, FareStructure can make a junior travel agent as productive as a seasoned veteran and it gives the OTA industry the ability to create complex itineraries using non-aligned carriers in an automated way.
FlexTrip is the automated re-ordering of a multi-stop itinerary to deliver a better price. Used in combination, FareStructure and FlexTrip give the travel industry the ability to show the consumer pricing options that could only ever be surfaced manually by a very experienced travel agent.
Both Fare Structure and FlexTrip are available via web interface, QuickTrip, and via API.
Trip Ninja also has 2 other products under development that further automate fare search tasks that are currently done manually – Virtual Interlining (combining non-aligned carriers in a point-to-point fare), and Multi-stop dynamic packaging (combining air and hotels for multi-destination holidays).
Commenting on the acquisition, Webjet Limited’s Managing Director John Guscic said:
“We see significant growth opportunities for the Webjet OTA business as international travel starts to return. Traditionally, in a multi-stop trip, we were only able to combine airfares from carriers with codeshare agreements, however the Trip Ninja technology now gives us the ability to create complex itineraries combining non-aligned carriers in order to provide our customers the best price.
Webjet has always been focused on offering our customers the greatest convenience and choice and we believe this helps us do exactly that. Pricing comparisons using the products have shown material price reductions compared to existing pricing and will allow us to provide a genuine price advantage for our customers. We believe it will play a key role in helping grow our share of the international flights market.
We are excited to have been able to acquire such an innovative business and are delighted the founders are staying on to realise their vision of automating the most complex areas of travel.”
Webjet intends to implement the Trip Ninja products into the Webjet OTA, as well as sell the products to other travel industry participants globally.
