USA INTERACTIVE, the parent of Expedia and
Hotels.com, will enter the real estate and financial services
businesses in light of an agreeing to acquire LendingTree in a
stock-for-stock transaction. The transaction, subject to the
approval of LendingTree shareholders, is valued at $626 million to
$734 million and is scheduled to close in late summer or early
fall. LendingTree is an online mortgage broker--banks compete for
the business of prospective home buyers on
http://www.lendingtree.com. The Web site also connects home buyers
and sellers with realtors. LendingTree's business model is
fee-based, with the company charging lenders and realtors for its
services. USAI said it intends to cross-sell LendingTree's services
to USAI's "existing base of nearly 40 million unique monthly
Internet users."
CRUISEPATH NETWORK, which had a foothold among
GDSs, agencies, cruise lines and Web sites in a still-evolving
world of online cruise booking, ceased operations Monday. Formerly
known as GoCruiseDirect.com and still minority-owned by Sabre,
CruisePath opted Friday to transition from Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection--which it had been operating under since November--to
Chapter 7 because the sought-after reorganization had "not
materialized," the Miami Lakes, Fla., company said. CruisePath
president John Stewart said the company had 300 to 400 direct
agency customers; relationships with TRAMS and Trisept Solutions;
and Sabre and Worldspan licensed its online booking platform.
WITH CRUISEPATH out of the picture, Omega World
Travel--the Fairfax, Va.-headquartered agency--plans to implement
its own home-grown cruise shopping/booking/reporting tool for
agents, CruiseBase, in the next 30 days, and intends to
"aggressively market" the technology to other agencies, COO Dan
Bohan said Monday. CruiseBase, which will link to Sabre for
inventory from nine cruise lines, has been in the works for some
time, but Omega could not move forward while CruisePath had a deal
in place with Sabre, officials said.
TRAVELOCITYwww.travelocity.com upgraded rental-car pricing
functionality on http://www.travelocity.com, and this enables
consumers to see the total price of the rental, including taxes and
fees, before they enter a credit card number. Travelocity is
calling the pre-purchase "total pricing" feature an online industry
first (Expedia and Orbitz aren't equipped with this
functionality).
CHRISTINE BERTHET resigned as CEO of b-there
[www.b-there.com], the Westport, Conn.-headquartered
vendor of meetings management technology. B-there said Berthet left
the company to pursue "personal interests." Marc Butlein, b-there's
chairman, will serve as interim CEO until Berthet's permanent
successor is named.