Webjet has reportedly entered into a deal with eBay to supply, distribute and market hotel rooms online through the auction and shopping website.

Published: 05 Jun 2008

Webjet has reportedly entered into a deal with eBay to supply, distribute and market hotel rooms online through the auction and shopping website.

According to The Age, Webjet said the partnership brought together the online travel agency's access to over 50,000 hotels with eBay's customer databases, which totals over five million members in Australia.

"Unlike many other forms of distribution, eBay has a unique and very special community of members of enormous size and marketing strength in the Australian region," Webjet managing director David Clarke said. "It is the largest single step that Webjet could make in terms of extending its market footprint into the sale of hotels."

Clarke said Webjet would incur only marginal incremental operating costs from the arrangement and would accordingly achieve greater economy of scale. He said further guidance in terms of the likely profit contribution to Webjet's bottom line would be made at the time of its annual result filing in August 2008.

Recently, Webjet had added PayPal to Webjet.com.au for customers buying international airfares.

The company stated: "The Webjet and PayPal relationship is however much more than a traditional supplier and merchant arrangement. It is a marketing partnershipwhere together we will provide our customers with a range of special promotions and discount price offers on a huge selection of some of our most popular international airfares."

‘For more innovative sales and marketing strategies join Richard Noon, CEO of Webjet and many more leading executives at the Sales and Marketing in Travel Asia Pacific 2008 conference, taking place on 29-30th July in Sydney. For more information and exclusive podcasts please go to www.eyefortravel.com/smapac.’