Toronto – From a reception held last night at the Indian Motorcycle Cafe, Sabre TSG launched Travelocity.ca (www.travelocity.ca). The site provides travel reservations capabilities and localized travel planning news, as well as offers and promotions specific to Canada.

"With an estimated 7.3 million Internet users and plans to be the most wired nation by the year 2000, Canada is a prime location for the expansion of our leading travel site," said Terrell Jones, president of Travelocity.com. "Launching Travelocity.ca allows us to deliver online travel services, rich with Canadian-focused content and homepage, to one of our most important markets."

Travelocity.ca provides features tailored specifically to the Canadian market, including:

  • Canadian news and information such as fare sales, rail schedules and traveller advice
  • Popular vacation spots for Canadian travellers
  • Pricing in Canadian dollars and local ticket fulfillment
  • Bilingual customer support 24-hours-a-day, seven days a week

"The leadership position Travelocity.com holds in the U.S. market is attributed to our innovative features and services along with our ability to provide travellers with a fast, convenient and secure way to book their travel online," said Jones. "With Travelocity.ca, we are able to customize these features and services to the needs of our Canadian members."

Members who book their travel through Travelocity.ca have the option of receiving their tickets from one of more than 400 Canadian Sabre travel agencies or through the Travelocity.ca Customer Service Centre operated by Rider-BTI Travel in Ottawa, Ontario.

Rider-BTI Travel Group, the leading Canadian owned and operated national corporate travel management company, operates the customer service centre giving Travelocity.ca members bilingual customer support 24-hours-a-day, seven days a week. With the customer service centre, members benefit from quick delivery with tickets printed and mailed in Canada.

"Rider-BTI is committed to providing quality customer service and outstanding travel technology," said Paul Rogers, vice president of marketing and business development for Rider-BTI. "We are excited to work with Travelocity.ca to provide its members with the ultimate in customer support."

Additional features available on Travelocity.ca include:

  • Best fare finder – Travelocity.ca interprets complicated fare rules and takes members directly from the fare to the flight by showing them which days to travel in order to get the lowest fare.
  • Destination Guide – A travel guide to more than 275 destinations around the world combining the best features from several guide books including Lonely Planet and The World Travel Guide.
  • Shop Safe Guarantee – An added assurance against unauthorized credit card usage. With Shop Safe Guarantee, Sabre will reimburse the customer's liability fee, up to $75, provided the transaction was made on Travelocity.ca using the site's secure Server.
  • Travel Agency Locator – Members who book their air travel on Travelocity.ca can choose to have their tickets fulfilled by the more than 400 Canadian Sabre-equipped travel agents listed in the site's Travel Agency Locator. To specify an agent, members can search by postal code or their agent's identification code.

Travelocity.ca is owned and operated by Sabre. Travelocity.ca provides reservations capabilities for 95 percent of all airline seats sold, more than 40,000 hotels, and more than 50 car rental companies. This reservation capability is paired with access to a vast database of destination and interest information. To date, Sabre has sold more than 3 million airline tickets online, and since its launch in March of 1996, Travelocity.com has registered more than 5 million members and logs more than 65 million page views per month.

Sabre is a world leader in the electronic distribution of travel and is a leading provider of information technology solutions for the travel and transportation industries, including customized software development and software products, transaction processing, consulting and total information technology outsourcing.

Current Sabre news releases may be accessed via the Internet. Visit our Web site at www.sabre.com.

Sabre and the Sabre logo are registered trademarks of an affiliate of The SABRE Group, Inc., soon to be known as Sabre Inc.

Judy Haveson
Public Relations
+1 713 546-2230
Sabre Holdings Corporation