SDL International, the leading provider of Global Information Management (GIM) solutions, announced today that Gullivers Travel Associates (GTA) and Octopustravel, subsidiaries of Travelport, have awarded SDL International a $400,000 strategic contract to provide technology solutions to enable the delivery of their travel products in 11 languages. The system will manage the flow of around 25 million words per year across the complete translation supply chain connecting to multiple language service providers used by GTA around the world.

GTA is the world’s largest supplier of ground travel products to the travel industry.  Octopustravel is the consumer side of the business. Over 16 million hotel bed nights are booked through GTA every year across 23,000 hotels and apartments, together with airport transfers, sightseeing tours, concert tickets and restaurant reservations.  

“We are a global business delivering a wide variety of travel products to our clients around the world, every day of every week”, says Kurt Ekert, senior vice president and general manager of GTA Americas and Octopustravel Worldwide.  “We are delighted to be working with SDL International to be able to offer our products and services to our global clients in their local language. Their solution provides us with a key point of differentiation, enabling us to offer our content in multiple languages quickly and easily.”

GTA and Octopustravel selected SDL International’s Translation Management System (TMS) having conducted a detailed competitive benchmark.  SDL TMS was chosen due to its capabilities in automating the complex processes involved in creating, maintaining and re-using multilingual content.  The solution seamlessly integrates with the in-house content management system, allowing automated handling of all localisation processes when content updates are made - ensuring content is stored once, translated once and used many times.

“Operating on a global basis requires agility and consistency of brand.  With SDL’s global information management solution we have significantly cut the time and cost it used to take us to publish our product information in multiple languages, together with the knowledge that our messaging is now consistent across our channels”, added Kurt Ekert.

“We are delighted to be partnering with GTA to help them drive their global business strategy” said Dr. Chris Boorman, Chief Marketing Officer for SDL International.  “This solution delivers significant competitive advantage through consistency of global branding and international customer experience. The businesses’ multilingual content has become a strategic asset that can now be leveraged to enable substantial growth in international markets”

The new system will be managed by SDL International at their computer hosting services based at Global Switch. This provides GTA and Octopustravel with a secure and robust environment to manage all their global information requirements.

About GTA
Gullivers Travel Associates (GTA) is one of the world’s leading wholesalers of ground travel products and services. GTA uses industry-leading online technology to supply tour operators and travel agents with a ‘one-stop-shop’ of content comprising over 23,000 directly contracted hotels and apartments and more than 260,000 ground travel items. GTA’s vast inventory includes airport transfers, sightseeing tours and even concert tickets and restaurant reservations. The company was founded in 1975 and employs over 2,300 staff in 31 offices around the world. GTA has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Travelport, formerly Cendant Travel Distribution Services, since April 2005.  

About OctopusTravel.com
OctopusTravel.com shows real-time availability and confirmations for a huge inventory of over 20,000 hotels and 3,000 apartments in 3,300 cities in 112 countries.  Accommodation ranges from budget to five star deluxe and is discounted by up to 70% off standard hotel rates.  Other services include more than 300 extensive city and country travel guides that can be downloaded, sightseeing and private transfers and, in the coming year, rail, travel insurance and car hire will be added.