Even as Expedia Corporate Travel plans global expansion, the company´s revenue from corporate travel in Europe is expected to exceed what it gets in the US by 2008. (7/6/2007)
This was shared by Jean-Pierre Remy, President, Expedia Corporate Travel (ECT), in an interview with Investor´s Business Daily.
Recently, ECT announced plans to launch service in Italy. Companies doing business in Italy will have access to fully localised service, content, language support and website providing a suite of online booking and travel management tools in Italian.
Italy will be ECT´s fifth European point of sale, adding to its existing European presence in France, Germany, the UK and Belgium.
In the interview, when queried about Europe´s progress vis-?vis US, where as per the information available about 40 percent of all corporate travel is booked online, Remy said, "It´s above 20 percent in the UK (and) between 12 percent and 15 percent in France, Germany and Northern Europe."
He reportedly said, "Europe is now catching up in the use of online corporate travel. And the trend is only beginning to emerge in Asia-Pacific. Expedia´s corporate travel business is growing very fast in Europe. By the end of 2008, (Expedia) expects to have a larger business in Europe than the US in terms of revenue."
