WorldRes clinches Asia deal

Asia’s leading travel portal, zuji.com has expanded its hotel offering through an agreement with WorldRes. WorldRes also provides online hotel content to Opodo, SAS Airlines and lastminute.com, signed at the end of 2003. It has access to 35,000 hotels including major hotel groups like Accor, Hilton International and InterContinental, which jointly own WorldRes. Best Western hotels were also signed up last week, providing access to its hotels. Zuji is a joint venture owned by Travelocity and 16 airlines operating in Asia Pacific. It provides online travel services to other websites like Yahoo Travel in the Asia Pacific region. Zuji is the leading portal in Asia according to travel content. Consumers can already book the WorldRes hotels through the “Hotel Guru” booking platform, as well as flights, car rental and attractions. Zuji executive director of commercial, Martin Symes says the website is the first in Asia to have partnered with WorldRes. He said: “WorldRes was the ideal choice, because of their unrivalled relationships with many of the world’s leading hotel brands and independent accommodation providers.” Report by Ginny McGrath