OTC wins exclusive Freeserve contract

The Online Travel Corporation (OTC) has won a contract to exclusively provide flights and short breaks content to Freeserve. According to OTC, Freeserve decided that it was licensing content from too many partners, including OTC, and wanted to streamline the process. A few months ago Freeserve launched a contested pitch, approaching a number of potential partners. The deal means that from 1 January OTC will exclusively provide flights, short breaks, Eurostar, ferries, villas and cottages, and its Build-Your-Own (BYO) technology to Freeserve for one year. OTC sales director, Vic Darvey told TravelMole: “The focus for us remains on margins. When you sell a dynamically packaged product the margin is 15% to 18%, and on flights alone it is 9%. “BYO now accounts for 35% of bookings across 80 own-brand and partner sites. On Freeserve the number of BYO bookings exceeds that 35% target, which is why we want to retain Freeserve, and why this deal is so good for OTC.” Freeserve is part of the Wanadoo Group, a subsidiary of France Telecom.