Travelport takes 49% stake in Locomote

Travelport takes 49% stake in Locomote

Travelport is taking a 49% shareholding in business travel technology company Locomote for an undisclosed sum.

Travelport is taking a 49% shareholding in business travel technology company Locomote for an undisclosed sum.

The firm has developed a platform to empower corporations in the seamless management of their travel, authorisation and procurement processes, including corporate traveller profile management, pre-trip approvals and duty of care capabilities.

The platform has been designed for the mobile commerce world by Locomote’s developers in Melbourne, Australia.

In turn, the platform uses all of Travelport’s Universal Profile, Universal Record, travel policy engine and uAPI – Universal Application Programming Interface – from which it obtains real time access to content, including low-cost and network carriers, airline ancillary products, car rental and hotel rates.

The platform has been developed to enable integration of third-party, complementary applications that corporations may want to add to their travel and authorisation processes, such as expense management systems and corporate booking tools.

Travelport president and chief executive Gordon Wilson said: “Through this strategic investment in Locomote, we have significantly strengthened our offering to both corporates and TMCs from an end-to-end customer experience perspective.

“Locomote has been, and will continue to be, totally focused on what corporations and their corporate travellers want, in order to make the management of their travel an empowered, improved and mobile user experience, leveraging all of the latest technology and content that Travelport brings.

“We are excited about the reaction received from the initial companies that have experienced the Locomote product line, including the ease of deployment and user adoption.

“We believe that further assets Travelport has recently acquired, such as the corporate hotel booking company, Hotelzon, will add even more differentiated content to the Locomote offering in the near future.”

Philip Weinman, chief executive and executive chairman of Locomote added: “This is all about giving our corporate travel customers a greater level of control over their own travel programmes.

“With the Locomote product, powered by Travelport content, we have created a powerful tool that is bespoke, flexible and cost effective.

“It will save businesses time and money and allow them to make the most of their travel budgets in real time.

“The platform we have developed is designed to be constantly added to, to keep pace with emerging trends as well as changing corporate customer needs.”