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TravelSky, the main airline reservation and agency distribution provider in China that processes around 240 million boarded passengers annually for Chinese carriers, announced that it has partnered with SITA to strengthen SITA’s Airfare solutions by establishing a regionalized pricing service for the China market, operated on SITA’s behalf by TravelSky in Beijing.
This ten-year, multi-million dollar deal for Airfare Price – part of the Horizon suite of passenger management solutions – secures SITA’s position in the Chinese market, which is expected to more than double to 700 million passengers in 2020.
Xiao Yinhong, CEO, TravelSky, said: “We are now entering a new phase in our partnership with SITA which will take us through the next decade, one of great growth in China’s air transport industry.
“By extending the operation of SITA Airfare Price into China as a regionalized service we can reduce the costs and increase scalability while continuing to benefit from the proven pricing functionality the Chinese market has relied upon for many years. In addition, we will add special focus on new functionalities appropriate to the region while ensuring that the service is maintained to international standards. This new cooperation between TravelSky and SITA will deliver the enhanced levels of functionality and service needed by the world’s most important and rapidly-developing market.”
SITA Airfare Price is a pricing engine that takes airline fares, rules and taxes and translates them to a consumer sale price. It accelerates international price publishing, automates price calculations and will ensure that the industry’s evolving international requirements will continue to be met by Chinese carriers. In addition, SITA’s technology will provide support for the Chinese airlines’ e-commerce systems, enabling them to fully participate in the international air travel market.
Francesco Violante, SITA CEO, said: “The future growth of the air transport industry is hugely dependant on the Chinese market and SITA’s partnership with TravelSky is significant. Together, SITA and TravelSky will develop and grow the international pricing system with Chinese airlines, supporting this major growing market.”
This announcement confirms SITA as a key supplier in the growing Asian markets. IATA has forecast that Asia/Pacific airlines this year will earn a profit of $2.2 billion in 2010, the largest for any region in a year that the global airline industry is predicted to have a full year profit of $2.5 billion.
TravelDailyNews Asia-Pacific editorial team has an experience of over 35 years in B2B travel journalism as well as in tourism & hospitality marketing and communications.
