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The Utravel travel agency network has announced an agreement with Expedia, the huge online tour company.  As part of the agreement, Utravel will integrate the  Hotels.com reservation system, owned by Expedia, into their offices.  Integration of the systems will cost Utravel 150,000 shekels.

The Utravel agency has signed an agreement with Expedia, one of the largest suppliers of tourism services in the world, in order to give their travel agencies a competitive edge.  Recently Utravel have experienced difficulties in competing with other agents both in Israel and throughout the world.

For the first phase, Utravel will start operating the hotel reservations system Hotels.com, owned by Expedia; this will run for a six month period at which time sales figures will be assessed. At the end of the running in period, the management of Utravel will host overseas representatives from Expedia in order to discuss the implementation of other products owned by the organization.

According to Moshe Shemma, Vice President of Utravel, agents connected to the network will be allowed to include the Expedia products online within their sites, allowing customers direct access to the reservations services.  For the smaller agents with limited activity, the use of the Expedia products will be carried our directly by the agent.

CEO of Utravel, Benni Milrad explained that this will provide customers with an additional service and at lower prices.  He said that the agreement testified to the great confidence that the international tourism industry has in the Israeli market and added how proud he was that Utravel had been chosen as the first network to be chosen to integrate Expedia's advanced systems in Israel.

According to Milrad during the last nine months complex negotiations had taken place with Expedia's global management team; in which Utravel had committed to present a clear work plan on all issues relating to technology in the company's offices. Also they were asked to set up a control system to support marketing on the sales of the offices.