OneTravel Holdings Issues Progress Report on Integration of OneTravel, Inc. Acquisition and Hotel Initiative
04 August 2005 - 11:46PM
Business Wire
OneTravel Holdings, Inc. (AMEX: OTV), a leading online and offline
provider of travel and leisure services announced today that it has
completed a major portion of the integration of its acquisition of
OneTravel, Inc. As of August 1, all of the company's full service
travel web sites are controlled by the same technology platform,
which allows all of the web sites to access and search the
inventory of both the 1-800-CheapSeats and OneTravel, Inc.
subsidiaries to find the best offering for a customer search. This
simplifies the technology center for the company, as only one
platform needs to be maintained. The Company also noted that there
would some cost savings from the integration, but that the real
long-term value was in the simplification of moving to one
platform. The Company also announced that it has seen strong growth
in its hotel sales over the past two months since the Company
initiated a focus on its hotel bookings. This focus not only
includes an effort to increase hotels from the Company's primary
full service travel web sites www.cheapseats.com and
www.onetravel.com, but also www.discounthotels.com, which is a web
site that had been owned by OneTravel, Inc. prior to its being
acquired by OTV in April 2005. The Company has found that
www.discounthotels.com is a very strong URL for consumer traffic as
the web site comes up generically when consumers enter descriptive
terms in search engines looking for inexpensive or "discount"
hotels. The Company believes that in time the
www.discounthotels.com web site could grow into a very prominent
web site in the online hotel market. The Company also expects its
hotel bookings to continue to trend up when it can access the
additional hotel properties available through the recently
announced agreement to use Pegasus Solutions, Inc.'s
UltraDirect(TM) electronic distribution service. The technology
work on accessing these hotel properties is in progress and the
Company expects the work to be completed and available to customers
by the end of August. "The OneTravel acquisition was a tremendous
strategic move for OTV as it gave us the critical mass we needed to
compete with the largest players in the online travel industry. The
integration of our Companies to one technology platform is
important, although we realize that unless you are in our industry
or somewhere in the trenches of technology, it is difficult to
appreciate the great accomplishment this is and how it will make us
much more efficient in the future," said William A. Goldstein,
Chairman and CEO of OneTravel Holdings. "I am also very excited
about the progress we have made in our hotel bookings. The
1-800-Cheapseats business was built around air travel, which in
many cases is the first part of a travel booking. The next
generation of our business is to add hotel offerings and market
these offerings, including packages, aggressively as hotels are
traditionally a much higher margin business than air. The fact that
we have been able to increase hotel bookings significantly in the
last few months and drive an increasing amount of traffic to
www.discounthotels.com gives me great optimism that we will be
successful in augmenting our air travel growth with significant
growth in our hotel business. We are really starting to hit our
stride on a lot of operating fronts, and although there are always
challenges ahead, we are very excited by the progress we have
made," added Mr. Goldstein. About OneTravel Holdings, Inc.
(AMEX:OTV) OneTravel Holdings, Inc. (www.onetravelholdings.com)
derives all of its revenues from its travel business subsidiaries,
Farequest Holdings, Inc., operating under the name 1-800-CHEAPSEATS
(www.cheapseats.com) and OneTravel, Inc. (www.onetravel.com), both
of which are leading online and offline providers of a full range
of travel services, and FS SunTours, Inc., which sells leisure and
vacation travel packages under the SunTrips(R) brand
(www.suntrips.com). The Company derives additional revenue from
operating other travel related web sites. Statements in this news
release about anticipated or expected future revenue or shareholder
value growth or expressions of future goals or objectives,
including statements regarding market conditions or whether current
plans to grow and strengthen the Company's business will be
implemented or accomplished, are forward-looking statements within
the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934,
as amended. When used in this release and documents, the words
"anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect" and similar
expressions, as they relate to the Company or its management, are
intended to identify such forward-looking statements, but are not
the exclusive means of identifying these statements. All
forward-looking statements in this release are based upon
information available to the Company on the date of this release.
Any forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties,
including the risk that the Company will be unable to grow or
strengthen its business due to a lack of capital or a change in
market demand for its products and services or to fully or
effectively integrate all business units or the inability to
realize anticipated cost savings or revenue and stockholder value
growth opportunities associated with the acquisitions of Farequest
Holdings, Inc. and OneTravel, Inc. The Company has previously
mentioned in conference calls that gross bookings are not equal to
gross revenues under generally accepted accounting principles, so
no inference can be made about profitability based on gross
bookings unless expressly stated by the Company. There is also no
certainty that the Company will be successful in its quest to
secure strategic alliances in its efforts to restructure its
SunTrips operations. The Company is also subject to those risks and
uncertainties described in the Company's filings with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including the Company's
historical losses and negative cash flow, its need for additional
capital, including to finance the $12,500,000 promissory notes
payable to the former stockholders of OneTravel, Inc., and that
future financing, if available, will dilute the Company's current
common stockholders. Additionally, forward-looking statements
concerning the performance of the travel and leisure industry are
based on current market conditions and risks, which may change as
the result of certain regulatory, political, or economic events, a
shift in consumer travel preferences, as well as those risks and
uncertainties described in the Company's SEC filings, which could
cause actual events or results to differ materially from the events
or results described in the forward-looking statements, whether as
a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Readers
are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking
statements. For a complete description of the items approved at the
annual stockholder's meeting, the Company's proxy statement is
available for viewing in the Company's SEC filings.
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