Gulliver puts Irish tourism on the pig's back.
April 2004
Gulliver Ireland, Ireland’s leading cost effective provider of tourism information and reservations, today announced a partnership agreement with Pigsback.com, Ireland's first personalised online offers and rewards
website, where visitors to the site can now book their Irish holiday accommodation online by using the Gulliver search engine. As a result Pigsback.com's 180,000 members, of which 60,000 are active in any given week, can access Gulliver Ireland's database through its online portal.
This exclusive arrangement will refer all online Self Catering, Guesthouse and B&B; accommodation enquiries by Pigsback.com members, to the Gulliver Ireland search engine, the world’s most widely used national booking system, with over 9,000 linked properties (Hotels, B&B;’s, Guesthouses and Self Catering accommodation), or over 60% of approved accommodation on the island. Gulliver Ireland has created an affiliate ‘white labelled’ site, which incorporates the Gulliver booking engine, yet maintains the look and feel of www.pigsback.com.
As part of the agreement, Gulliver Ireland will reward Pigsback members with Piggy Points for each booking received. PiggyPoints are the customer’s reward for joining and taking up offers with Pigsback.com partner brands. The more PiggyPoints you earn, the greater your opportunities to claim rewards. On this basis, a customer will receive 500 piggy points for a Self Catering booking and 250 piggy points for making a B&B;/Guesthouse booking.
Gulliver Ireland’s database is currently available through their online portal GoIreland.com, Ireland's premier online window for Irish tourism businesses and the leading consumer site for tourist information and reservations. Users travelling to and around Ireland are offered a wide choice of, and the best value deals in, accommodation, car hire, ferries, vacation packages and online shopping.
GoIreland.com provides immediate, low cost and easy access to an extensive range of tourism products and services through its up-to-date, comprehensive database. Information provided includes accommodation, general destination information, calendar of events and sport and leisure facilities.
There were more than 1,950,000 accommodation searches on the GoIreland.com booking system last year and online bookings were worth €8.4 million, a 68% increase on the same period in 2002.
GoIreland.com received over 4.5 million visitors in 2003. This figure is predicted to rise to 5.5 million this year.
Pigsback.com’s membership is currently running at 180,000, of which approximately 60,000 members are active in any given week. It focuses strongly on bringing new products and services to consumers, and the inclusion of the Gulliver booking engine on the site will certainly help to achieve this objective.
Speaking at the announcement today Dr Stewart Stephens, Managing Director, Gulliver Ireland said, “We are very exited about this new venture with Pigsback.com. We have noticed a significant increase in online bookings over the past number of years and it is an area which we have invested extensively in. Our customers enjoy the flexibility, speed, independence and expert back-up support provided by GoIreland.com in booking their holidays and, as a result, online bookings now represent 34% of overall Gulliver bookings and were worth €8.4 million last year.
“Through this ‘white-label’ agreement with Pigsback.com, we can now bring this service to a wider audience and offer Pigsback.com’s 180,000 members the greatest choice of holiday accommodation available in Ireland at the most cost effective prices.”
COO of Pigsback.com, Rory Duggan said, “This new service on Pigsback.com allows members to book from a wide range of Self-Catering and B&B; properties nationwide, and allows them to earn PiggyPoints at the same time. Holidays are a very important element of the Pigsback.com site, and the Irish Short Break Zone in particular has been extremely popular with our members. Our research shows that 85% of our members are planning to take holidays and short breaks in Ireland during the year, therefore we are delighted to offer our members the ability to research and book these types of properties on Pigsback.com in conjunction with Gulliver Ireland.”
