Deal agreed for Booking.com to power WAYN property search

Social networking and travel community WAYN.com is forging a strategic partnership with Booking.com.

Social network and travel community WAYN (Where Are You Now?) is forging a strategic partnership with Booking.com.

The deal will enable WAYN to offer an accommodation search service for its 22.7 million members via hotels.wayn.com

It will provide access to more than 500,000 properties and combine booking.com hotel reviews with WAYN users social opinions.

WAYN claims to generate 15,000 travel opinions and tips daily and over 10 million visitors a month.

The site received investment from Scottish Equity Partners in 2012 and was originally backed by the likes of former lastminute.com co-founder Brent Hoberman, David Soskin and Hugo Burge from Cheapflights.co.uk, as well as Andrew Critchlow and Andy Phillips from Active Hotels.

Jerome Touze, co-founder of WAYN said: “Providing a hotel search option to WAYN members is a logical step for us.

“We focus on the top of the travel funnel by providing ideas on where to go next. It makes sense to now complete the user journey with a booking service.

“The move also supports WAYN’s aim to improve the customer experience with other innovative trip-planning services currently under development and which will provide unique incentives for our users to book a hotel via our platform directly.”

Bryan Batista, head of strategic partnerships at Booking.com said: “The goal of Booking.com is to help leisure and business travellers, whatever their budgets, easily discover, book, and enjoy the world’s best places to stay.

“We are excited to work together with WAYN.com and see accommodation reservations grow rapidly in a very short time via their website. We are committed to offering the best travel experience for our customers globally.”