Peak season for European travel sites Venere and Swoodoo

Written on July 16, 2008 – 10:11 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

A major acquisition and a round of funding sparked up the European travel industry yesterday. Expedia bought Italy-based Venere, German booking site Swoodoo received two million euros from Deutsche Telekom. How’s that for the peak season?

Expedia improves its European position

Chances are high that you’ve once booked a flight or hotel at US-based travel site Expedia, since it offers localized sites for most European countries and has many subsites like TripAdvisor and Hotels.com. The acquisition of Venere strengthens their position in Europe, as Venere lists about 29,000 hotels - mostly from this continent. 10,000 of these hotels were unavailable on Expedia, most of these new hotels for Expedia are based in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Financial details are undisclosed.

Deutsche Telekom works on web presence

The two-year old travel site Swoodoo was welcomed in the T-Online Ventures portfolio - the online division of Deutsche Telekom. Not with an acquisition, but with 2 million euros and upcoming cooperation with several of T-Online Ventures’s sub sites. Swoodoo will use the money for development, marketing, and growing beyond the borders Germany.

Is it the season?

So why do these strategic moves take place now? My simple guess: both sites have been performing really well in the hectic period before the summer. They’ve proved to be financial healthy and have enough traffic coming in. Reasons enough for Deutsche-Telekom and Expedia to make their moves.

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acquisition, deutsche telekom, expedia, funding, swoodoo, travel, venere

About the author: Ernst-Jan is a blogger and journalist, who previously worked in New York to cover news at the United Nations. Next to writing, he's also a singer in the band Christina Five.

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