Chinese travel giant to buy Skyscanner
Chinese online travel agent Ctrip is to acquire travel search website Skyscanner in a deal worth around £1.4 billion.
Skyscanner had reportedly been looking for a buyer or had been considering an initial public offering.
In January of this year, when it raised £128 million in a funding round, it was valued at £1.2 billion.
The Ctrip deal is due to be completed by the end of this year.
Skyscanner’s current management team, which includes co-founder and CEO Gareth Williams, will stay on and the business will continue to operate independently.
"Ctrip is the clear market leader in China and a company we can learn a huge amount from," said Williams.
"Today’s news takes Skyscanner one step closer to our goal of making travel search as simple as possible for travellers around the world.
"Ctrip and Skyscanner share a common view – that organizing travel has a long way to go to being solved. To do so requires powerful technology and a traveller-first approach.
"In taking the next step to achieving our goal, Skyscanner will remain operationally independent and our growing global team will continue to innovate and deliver the products travellers know and love. It’s an exciting time for our business, our partners and the travellers who use us."
James Jianzhang Liang, co-founder and executive chairman of Ctrip, added: "This acquisition will strengthen long-term growth drivers for both companies.
"Skyscanner will complement our positioning at a global scale and Ctrip will leverage our experience, technology and booking capabilities to Skyscanner’s."
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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