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Flight Centre acquires business travel management startup
Despite laying off hundreds of workers and closing travel agency locations, Australia based Flight Centre Travel Group is still on the acquisition trail.
It announced the acquisition of San Francisco based WhereTo, an enterprise travel tech platform for corporate travel planning.
WhereTo taps artificial intelligence to recommend trip options for business travelers that add in criteria such as traffic conditions, personal preferences and available travel deals.
It works with large and small businesses including Walmart.
"We are delighted to come together with WhereTo during this unprecedented time to make a significant advancement in our technology capability, which will allow us to emerge from the crisis in an incredibly powerful way," said Charlene Leiss, President of Flight Centre Travel Group Americas.
FCTG said WhereTo will be integrated into products and services in the Corporate Traveler and FCM Travel Solutions brands.
"The need to provide our customers with an advanced digital platform is further heightened with the COVID-19 pandemic," says John Morhous, Flight Centre Chief Experience Officer.
Flight Centre plans to develop WhereTo’s leisure product, WhereFor, which is a search engine offering destination options and pricing based on a traveler’s budget.
By Ray Montgomery, US editor
TravelMole Editorial Team
Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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