Travelport and Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori, the first Italian private high-speed railway company, have signed a strategic partnership agreement for the distribution of NTV rail services to Galileo-connected travel agencies in Italy and worldwide.
With this ground-breaking agreement, travel agents (initially in Italy) will be able to book the innovative Italo rail services for their travellers, directly within Travelport Smartpoint App, which also supports commands from any GDS and reduces keystrokes for an overall booking by 15%.
“To be successful with our new high-speed rail service we need a strong relationship with travel agents,” said Giuseppe Bonollo, NTV’s Sales and Services Director. “We are building that strong relationship with the support of a technology and distribution partner that is able to provide significant value during our start-up phase. We chose to partner with Travelport as they are proven to be able to provide travel suppliers with a crucial distribution channel for the Italian market as well as worldwide.”
“We are delighted to add such an innovative partner as NTV to the travel service providers that choose to sell and distribute their content through Travelport,” added Damiano Sabatino, Travelport’s General Manager for Southern Europe. “NTV meets the growing demand for high-speed rail transport in Italy and beyond and forms part of our ongoing global strategy of aggregating new rich content into the travel agency desktop alongside flights, hotel and other travel services.”
Through Italo, NTV connects nine Italian cities and 12 railway stations with 50 journeys each day. This provides up to 12 million trains-km per year.
