The online travel agency (OTA) is a website or app that offers travel agency services to consumers, such as booking airline tickets and accommodation. OTAs are a great alternative to the traditional way of buying flights, hotels, and other travel-related services.
The following list of famous online travel agencies will help you
Amadeus
Amadeus is a global leader in online travel agency technology and distribution. It provides software, services, and solutions to over 70,000 travel and tourism organisations worldwide. The company was founded in 1980 by Louis de Silveira and has its headquarters in Madrid, Spain.
Expedia
Expedia is an online travel agency that was founded in 1996. It’s based in Bellevue, Washington and operates in more than 60 countries.
Expedia offers flight and hotel booking, rental cars and cruises. Its website also has a mobile app for use on smartphones and tablets. In addition to discounts on its own services, Expedia has a rewards program called Expedia+ that gives points for using the company’s services as well as partner hotels, airlines, and car rental companies.
MakeMyTrip
MakeMyTrip is an Indian travel company, founded in 2000 by Deep Kalra and Ashish Kashyap. The company provides services for air, bus and train tickets, hotels and holiday packages. MakeMyTrip is popular for its online flight booking services through which people can book domestic as well as international flights within India and abroad. The company also makes use of the mobile app to make their booking process easier for customers who want to avail it at all times without having to wait in queues or go through lengthy forms while making a new booking.
As they are one of India’s leading travel agencies with the most developed platforms on digital media worldwide (including Mobile apps), you will find everything you need from them when it comes down to planning your next vacation!
eDreams Odigeo Group
eDreams Odigeo Group is an online travel agency that operates in Europe. It was founded in 2001, and it has become the largest European online travel agency by offering flights, hotels and car rental services. The company has over 700 employees based in Madrid, London and Paris.
Booking.com
Booking.com is the largest online travel agency in the world, and it’s also Dutch. The company was founded in 1996 by Gijs de Vries and Joanie Roaster, who had previously worked as software developers for a Belgian hotel chain. As of 2019, Booking.com has over 1,200 employees worldwide and offers services to customers around the globe including 196 countries on its website alone!
In addition to having a presence in 196 countries across six continents (and growing), Booking.com also employs more than 3,000 people who work hard every day to provide their clients with a seamless booking experience that lets them find exactly what they need when traveling somewhere new or returning home after an international trip abroad.
Priceline Group
The Priceline Group is an American multinational corporation that owns the online travel agency Priceline.com, which offers flights and hotels for reservation online. It also operates other brands such as KAYAK, Trivago and Booking.com via its Booking Holdings subsidiary. The CEO of Group is Darren Huston (since 2018).
The company was founded in 1996 by Jay S. Walker and Jeffery Boyd as a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., later known as Ticketmaster Online! Incorporated.
In May 2000, after Ticketmaster had acquired its rival eTicketWeb, it sold the division to IAC/InterActiveCorp (then called USA Networks) at a price of $690 million. At that time, it was stated that Priceline had grossed more than $200 million since its founding. In 1999, MSN partnered with internet retailer Amazon to form an alliance called “Click-to-Buy”. Following this deal’s success, both companies decided to expand their partnership beyond shopping links into other areas such as travel. On February 26th, 2017, it was announced that Expedia had agreed to purchase Orbitz Worldwide from parent company Travelport for $1 Billion USD in an all-stock deal worth roughly $1 Billion USD across their combined market capitalizations at closing date based on financial information provided by each firm respectively.
TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is a travel review website founded in 2000. It has over 50 million reviews of hotels, restaurants and destinations compiled from its global user base. The company also features a forum where members can ask questions and discuss topics relevant to the site’s content.
TripAdvisor is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts with offices around the world. The company has been publicly traded since 2011 and employs more than 1,000 people globally (as of 2017).
In June 2018 TripAdvisor was sued by a woman who claimed that she was falsely accused of stealing money from her hotel room during her stay at a Costa Rica resort after posting a negative review on TripAdvisor’s website about her experience there; she requested $550 million dollars in damages from TripAdvisor as well as an injunction against them removing any reference to this issue from future editions of their guidebooks or web pages relating to this particular resort complex or area which might display it prominently next time someone tries booking there again!
Thomas Cook Group
Thomas Cook Group is a British multinational travel and tourism company headquartered in Peterborough, United Kingdom. Thomas Cook Group is the world’s largest travel company by revenue, with operations in over 200 countries and territories. It can be traced back to 1748 when William Cook chartered a room for his son on a ship sailing from Whitby to London.
Thomas Cook Group was founded in 1841 by partnership between John Mason and William Palmer as Palmer & Co., renamed Thomas Cook & Son in 1854 when John Mason retired from the firm. The company first established a headquarters office at 7 Ludgate Hill, London and later moved to Northumberland Street where it relocated its head office during World War II due to bomb damage sustained during air raids on London.
In 2006, Thomas Cook AG acquired Kuoni Group Plc to form one of Europe’s largest leisure travel groups based upon combined revenues of $3 billion per annum (approximately £1 billion). In 2007, Kuoni Travel International Limited was created as an operating subsidiary of Kuoni Holdings PLC
Yatra.com
Yatra.com is an Indian online travel agency that provides information on flight, hotel, bus, holiday packages and other travel related services. It was founded in 2006 by Dhruv Shringi and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.
Skyscanner
Skyscanner is one of the most popular travel sites in the world. Skyscanner is a global travel search engine, operating in over 30 languages and covering more than 80 countries. It was launched in 2001 and is owned by Ctrip, which also owns TripAdvisor.
Online travel agency
An online travel agency (OTA) is a business that bookings and sells travel services to consumers. OTAs serve as an intermediary between the consumer and supplier of travel services, providing information on products and prices, making reservations, and taking payment for these services.
The term “online travel agency” is often used interchangeably with “travel agent”, but they are different. A travel agent is someone who has been certified by the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) and works for a company that employs them.
Conclusion
We hope you’ve learned something from our list of the world’s best online travel agencies. If there is one thing, we would like you to remember from this piece, it is that many of these companies are large enough to provide you with everything you need for your next trip from flights and hotels all the way down to rental cars and more. So, if you think long and hard about what kind of agency would suit your needs best before deciding on a brand name.
