eWaterways signs agreement with Travelport

Langley, UK.  3 November, 2009:  eWaterways,  the world’s first global aggregator of small ship cruises, has signed an agreement with Travelport, a leading provider of global distribution systems (GDS), to distribute its extensive niche cruise content to GDS users for the first time. The new content will be distributed through two separate Travelport point of…

Langley, UK.  3 November, 2009:  eWaterways,  the world’s first global aggregator of small ship cruises, has signed an agreement with Travelport, a leading provider of global distribution systems (GDS), to distribute its extensive niche cruise content to GDS users for the first time. The new content will be distributed through two separate Travelport point of sale leisure systems – initially the Galileo Leisure portal from November 2009 followed by the Travelport Cruise & Tour™ platform in the U.S. and Canada in 2010.


 eWaterways offers over 1200 contracted vessels comprising river cruise ships, hotel barge trips, expedition voyages, coastal cruises and sailing and yacht journeys, which can either be chartered wholly in many cases or booked by cabin.


Jane Lewis, senior director, hospitality and car rental, Travelport GDS, said: “We are always looking for ways to bring valuable new content to our GDS customers to help them earn new revenues at a time of reduced commissions.  Now our agency customers using the Galileo Leisure portal will have access to specialist cruise content as well as the extensive hotel content provided by both GTA and youtravel.com.”


Daniela Wagner, CEO for eWaterways, said: “We are delighted to have signed this agreement with Travelport which enables us to distribute our niche cruises more widely to the travel trade.  We pay generous commission rates and present a real opportunity for travel agents to boost their revenues during such tough economic times. Furthermore, being the largest global online aggregator of specialist cruises we are able to offer fabulous vessels that have never been sold in the UK market place”