Webjet agrees deal to acquire automated travel tech specialist Trip Ninja

The Canadian firm develops flight booking software for travel agencies

Webjet, the parent of B2B wholesaler WebBeds, has agreed a deal to acquire Canadian travel technology company Trip Ninja.

Founded in 2015, Trip Ninja has develops products for traditional and online travel agencies to automate manual processes involved in selling complex international itineraries.

No value was revealed for the deal which was announced yesterday (November 24). Webjet will integrate Trip Ninja into its OTA, as well sell its products to travel sector partners.

Webjet managing director John Guscic said: “We see significant growth opportunities for the Webjet OTA business as international travel starts to return.

“Traditionally, in a multi-stop trip, we were only able to combine airfares from carriers with codeshare agreements, however the Trip Ninja technology now gives us the ability to create complex itineraries combining non-aligned carriers in order to provide our customers the best price.

“Webjet has always been focused on offering our customers the greatest convenience and choice and we believe this helps us do exactly that.

“Pricing comparisons using the products have shown material price reductions compared to existing pricing and will allow us to provide a genuine price advantage for our customers.

“We believe it will play a key role in helping grow our share of the international flights market.

“We are excited to have been able to acquire such an innovative business and are delighted the founders are staying on to realise their vision of automating the most complex areas of travel.”

Trip Ninja’s two core products are FareStructure which automates the combining of fares from carriers that do not have a cooperation or codeshare agreement offer a best priced itinerary.

And FlexTrip, which is an automated re-ordering of multi-stop itineraries to deliver a better price.

Used in combination, FareStructure and FlexTrip can show the consumer pricing options that could only ever be surfaced manually by a very experienced travel agent.

Both Fare Structure and FlexTrip are available via web interface, QuickTrip, and via API.

Trip Ninja also has two other products under development to automate manual fare search tasks: Virtual Interlining  which combines non-aligned carriers in a point-to-point fare, and multi-stop dynamic packaging, which combines air and hotels for multi-destination holidays.