ORLANDO --
Southwest Airlines Vacations signed a deal with LasVegas.com to be
the exclusive provider of vacation packages for the site.
Beginning in
November, consumers will be able to book Southwest Airlines
Vacations on the destination-focused Web site.
LasVegas.com is
owned by Greenspun Media Group, which counts the Las Vegas Sun, Las
Vegas Life, Las Vegas Weekly, Showbiz Weekly and Vegas Golfer among
its publications. It also owns Vegas.com, which is rated the top Las Vegas
destination Web site by ComScore Media Metrix.
With more than 200
flights a day, Southwest Airlines is Las Vegas top
carrier.
Getting Southwest
Airlines to sell its product online was a coup for LasVegas.com
because the airline has shown staunch reluctance to allow its
products to be sold by third parties in the past.
Howard Lefkowitz,
president of LasVegas.com, said that Southwest is not in the habit
of doing deals with any entity that Im familiar with.
Southwest has
denied online access to its inventory to virtually all comers,
including Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia.com.
With the exceptions
of Expedia Corporate Travel and BookingBuilder Technologies (also a
corporate travel application), which are authorized to access
Southwest inventory, Southwest has kept Southwest.com an
exclusive online source of airline tickets.
The airlines
private-label vacation package product, Southwest Airlines
Vacations, is managed from Orlando by the Mark Travel Corp. and is
offered online to consumers at SWAVacations.com
and to travel agents at the VAX
VacationAccess Web site, which is operated by Mark Travels
technology affiliate, TriSept Solutions.
Southwest Airlines
Vacations offers a wide range of Las Vegas hotels, car rentals and
attractions, but the carriers route system bypasses several key
gateways, including New York, Boston and Atlanta.
Although
LasVegas.com does not penetrate those markets, Greenspun Media
Group accesses them through Vegas.com, which offers America West
Vacations packages. That operator will soon have a greater reach in
the East because of America Wests merger with US
Airways.
To contact
reporter David Cogswell, send e-mail to [email protected].