Ctrip completes purchase of Skyscanner
Edinburgh-based travel search site Skyscanner is now a fully fledged member of Chinese travel giant Ctrip’s growing portfolio.
Ctrip has now closed the $1.7 billion deal to acquire Skyscanner after announcing its intention to buy it just last month.
It has taken just than two weeks to finalise since the deal was first announced.
“Today marks the day that we move from a private VC-funded company to one that is the strategic partner of Ctrip, one of the most successful online travel companies in the world,” Skyscanner cofounder and CEO Gareth Williams said on the company blog.
“This is a milestone, but like real milestones, it is at the side of the road and is not the road itself. I am looking forward to working with Ctrip to do all we can to solve the problem of organising travel — a problem which is far from resolved and one which continues to drive me, personally, as well as everything we strive to do at Skyscanner.”
Williams says Skyscanner will continue to be ‘operationally independent’ but the Ctrip association will bring ‘true value and economies of scale to airlines, hotels and other travel suppliers’.
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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