Travelport, a broad-based business services company and a leading provider of critical transaction processing solutions to companies operating in the global travel industry acquires real-time travel search engine, Sprice.

With this acquisition, Travelport is looking to “expand its hospitality offering by providing Galileo and Worldspan-connected agents with access to Sprice’s portfolio of over 240,000 international hotel properties, as well as a comprehensive suite of hotel reviews, merchandising options and comparison tools. Travelport will also utilise Sprice’s proven search technology to enhance its Global Distribiution Systems (GDS) channels, enabling the company to deliver and distribute richer, more diverse supplier content to its subscriber customers.”

Sprice is headquartered in Singapore and has an office in Strasbourg, France. All eighteen employees have been extended offers of employment at Travelport and the company will now be managed under the recently announced Consumer and New Ventures group within Travelport. Sprice was funded by Walden International and Sofinnova Partners.

Interestingly, Travelport also owns 48% of Orbitz, another travel search company. While the acquisition amount is undisclosed, it is unclear whether Travelport will merge Orbitz and Sprice into one service or will function as independent entities.

This is akin to Travelocity Global, a US-based online travel company, acquiring Travelguru, an Indian online hotel distribution network. The acquisition amount was undisclosed but experts valued it at about $10-12 million. Travelguru was also said to be in talks with Travelocity’s rival Expedia, but the deal never materialized. It would seem that there is an emerging trend of Western travel search companies looking to penetrate the Asian scene through local acquisitions.