Zuji Voted Best Asia Pacific Online Travel Agent

Zuji Voted the Best Online Travel Agent in Asia Pacific … Again

13 October 2006 SINGAPORE: Online travel agent ZUJI (www.zuji.com) has been acknowledged for the second consecutive year as ‘the best online travel agent in Asia Pacific’ by representatives of the travel industry in the Asia Pacific Region.

ZUJI received the prestigious TTG ‘Travel Industry Award’ during the ‘17th Annual Travel Awards’ ceremony and gala dinner held in Pattaya, Thailand last night attended by the cream of travel professionals in Asia Pacific. ZUJI’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr Scott Blume, accepted the award on behalf of ZUJI sites and teams located in Australia (zuji.com.au), Singapore (zuji.com.sg), Hong Kong (zuji.com.hk), Taiwan (zuji.com.tw), Korea (nextour.co.kr), New Zealand (zuji.co.nz) and India (Travelocity.co.in) which will be launched soon.

In thanking industry representatives, ZUJI’s travel peers and partners, Mr Scott Blume commented:

“This award recognises ZUJI’s historic and growing popularity with travellers throughout Asia Pacific, our commitment to the Region and the passion and skills of the ZUJI team members who help create, manage and market ZUJI’s unique online travel sites in a highly competitive environment.”

In New Zealand, www.zuji.co.nz is managed by Gullivers Pacific.

Mr Blume noted that as more consumers realise the benefits of logging-on to book travel, more local and global companies are seeking to reap the financial potential of the growing industry, but few have the scale or established trust of ZUJI, which has been operating for many years in Asia Pacific. He said that the key to ZUJI’s ongoing success was ensuring that travellers’ needs are always the driving force behind the evolution of the ZUJI travel sites, matched with having a long term view and confidence in the team and business model.

“There are five c’s to bear in mind when it comes to creating a successful online travel site: allow travellers the freedom to control the search and booking process, make access and booking travel convenient, ie 24 hours a day, seven days a week, offer competitive pricing across a wide range of travel choices, and allow immediate confirmation and secure payment online.

ZUJI has an impressive track record of working with a wide range of travel suppliers in the region to distribute product to a growing traveler base of more than one million members. In addition to access to a comprehensive range of airfares, hotels, packages and other travel products, ZUJI has worked closely with many suppliers to offer compelling tactical deals supported by innovative, fast to market, marketing campaigns. This award also reflects the success of these innovative supplier relationships, including relationships with many of the hotels participating in the innovative Travelocity Net Rate Hotel Program.

This week ZUJI launched new 'hotel guru' enhancements that will make it easier for our customers to shop for hotels. The new functionality includes the ability to select up to four hotels and compare them side by side based on a range of attributes -- location, star rating, photos, amenities and price. We have also introduced tools that make it easier for customers to refine their search by price range, star rating, location or hotel name. These new features, in addition to our existing traveller reviews and mapping functionality will allow travellers to more easily find a hotel that best suits their needs. It also allows hoteliers a new way to feature their hotels to ZUJI‘s audience of travellers,” Mr Blume said.

ENDS

About ZUJI

In 2005, and again in 2006, ZUJI has been voted Asia Pacific’s ‘Best Online Travel Agent’ by the readers of TTG travel magazines in Asia Pacific.

Travellers can visit ZUJI sites to find, choose and securely make reservations and payment instantly online with up to 72,000 local and international hotels, 400 local and international airlines, 4,000 world wide attractions as well as packaged tours, cruises, car hire and travel insurance. Each of ZUJI’s sites is unique, and managed by an in-country team of people. ZUJI offers great value travel deals as negotiated locally, regionally and internationally through the Travelocity network of companies. ZUJI allows instant confirmation of bookings, with e-reservations, e-ticketing and e-payment options.

ZUJI has teams and travel websites in:

Singapore: www.zuji.com.sg In English

Hong Kong: www.zuji.com.hk In English and Cantonese

Taiwan: www.zuji.com.tw In Traditional Chinese

Australia: www.zuji.com.au In English

Korea: www.nextour.co.kr In Korean (ZUJI operates as ‘Nextour’ in Korea)

New Zealand: www.zuji.co.nz In English (site powered by ZUJI, and managed by Gullivers Pacific)

ZUJI will establish a ‘Travelocity India’ site and team in India in the near future.

ZUJI’s ‘Travel Partner Network’ division allows third-party travel suppliers, agents and web sites to harness the travel booking functionality of ZUJI for flight, hotel, packages, activities and other travel content and products. ZUJI’s travel network partners include: Lonely Planet (Asia); Yahoo! (Korea); MSN (Korea); Atnext (Hong Kong); Naver.com (Korea); Korean Air (Korea, providing for ‘Honeymoon’ and ‘Woman’ travel portals); Apple Daily Online (Taiwan); and Virgin Blue/Blue Holidays (Australia).

ZUJI is owned by Travelocity®, an international leader in online travel. Travelocity is owned by Sabre Holdings Corporation (NYSE: TSG), a world leader in travel commerce.

ENDS

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