(PRWEB) December 21, 2000
Panpac Media.com Unveils Unique
Internet-Powered Leisure and Travel Business
Through Strategic Partnerships with ABACUS and Travel.World.Net
SINGAPORE, 19 December 2000 – ZingASIA, a unit of Panpac Media.com Limited, and the world’s first Asia-centric and content-rich Internet-powered travel marketing and e-commerce company, today announced strategic partnerships with ABACUS and Travel.World.Net. This partnership provides ZingASIA with booking engines and travel-related e-commerce capabilities to allow web visitors to book flights, tour packages, car rentals and accommodation online.
The strategic partnerships are intended to support the company’s aggressive expansion plans to capitalise on world-wide growth opportunities in the online travel and leisure industry.
“Partnering with ABACUS and Travel.World.Net allows ZingASIA to bring our travel e-commerce offerings to the market quickly. This arrangement allows us to deploy our scarce resources to where we bring the most value to our customers and suppliers – namely, our unique and innovative travel marketing based on our rich media and content” said Paul Chong, Executive Director and Chairman of the Executive Board of ZingASIA. “People travel because they have read stories, seen pictures or videos, or hear from others about how exciting a particular place is. The ZingASIA concept is about using editorial content to entice people to travel – to market travel destinations, and selling travel products to fulfil that ‘dream travel’. While ZingASIA will have the “hottest deals” from time to time, like all other travel websites, our emphasis is on the unique ZingASIA experience,” Mr Chong further explained.
When the ABACUS and Travel.World.Net systems come ‘live’ at ZingASIA on 19 December 2000, visitors to http://www.zingasia.com will be able to book air-tickets, accommodations and tours into seven countries across the Asia Pacific. More and new Asia-Pacific destinations will be added every month.
“With the introduction of our online travel offering, ZingASIA’s revenue is expected to grow significantly, thereby, reducing our net cash burn-rate substantially. And, we hope to achieve profitability within the next 12 months,” added Mr Chong.
More than 250,000 visitors come to http://www.zingasia.com every month, generating about 7.8 million page views. More than 85% of visitors to ZingASIA are from North America, United Kingdom and Australia.
“At ABACUS, we provide real-time access to travel information and airline inventory. Our secure reservations system ties in nicely to ZingASIA’s leisure and travel site and users will be able to enjoy the ease of use and security available,” said Patrick Lai, Vice President, E-Commerce of ABACUS International. “We have been very selective in our partnerships, and we are pleased to work with a site with such robust features and a leading reputation as ZingASIA.”
“Travel.World.Net is a perfect compliment to ABACUS, as where their engine does ‘air’, Travel.World.Net does ‘ground’. And this gives ZingASIA the distinct ability to offer its audience a complete range of travel and tourism products” says Lachlan McKerrow, General Manager – Asia of World.Net Ltd. “This extends ZingASIA’s ability to service its customers beyond the normal reach of hotels and car rental, to tour packages, sightseeing, recreational activities, events and even water-based rental services.”
With its unique click-to-mortar offerings, ZingASIA offers users greater interactivity and improved customer relation management facilities. The website is supported by a “live 24/7 Internet operator” with on-the-ground customer service provided by leading destination management companies like Asian Trails, CP Tour, Encounter Australia, Sime Travel, Tour East and Westminster Tours. This brings together the best of both online and traditional business practices – the first time such services are made available by an Internet-powered leisure and travel company.
In addition to on-the-ground customer support, the website also incorporates comprehensive city guides and directories featuring in-depth and definitive information on Asian cultures and interests.
About ZingASIA
ZingASIA is a wholly-owned business unit of Panpac Media.com Limited, a company listed on the SGXDAQ. It is a content-rich, Asia-centric, Internet-powered leisure and travel business offering a comprehensive one-stop information resource on leisure, travel, lifestyle and living in major Asia Pacific cities. ZingASIA provides travel-related e-commerce capabilities, internal search and booking engines, feature articles with on-the-ground teams to provide support that offers visitors a fun, “localised” experience never before possible.
Currently, ZingASIA covers 19 locations in the region, spanning Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand.
For more information on Panpac Media.com and ZingASIA, please visit http://panpacmedia.com and http://www.zingasia.com.
About ABACUS International
Singapore-based ABACUS INTERNATIONAL is the Asia-Pacific’s largest Global Distribution System (GDS) and Computerised Reservations System (CRS). It provides travel information and reservations specially tailored for the Asia-Pacific. It is 65 percent owned by ABACUS International Holdings and 35 percent by Sabre, a US-based world leader in the electronic distribution of travel and travel-related services.
ABACUS International Holdings is jointly owned by All Nippon Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, China Airlines, EVA Airways, Garuda Indonesia, Hong Kong Dragon Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Philippine Airlines, Royal Brunei Airlines, SilkAir and Singapore Airlines.
Established in May 1988, ABACUS is the market leader in its partners’ home markets and today has some 9,300 agency locations and more than 23,300 terminals in 19 countries. In addition to access to airline schedules and fares, cruise companies and other travel information, ABACUS also provides access to more than 50 car rental companies and over 50,000 hotel properties world-wide.
ABACUS maintains its strong presence in the Asia-Pacific region through National Marketing Companies (NMCs), which provide training, on-site support and also a helpdesk that answers queries and trouble-shoots problems. ABACUS is represented by 40 NMC offices in Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. ABACUS also has offices in Beijing and Shanghai, China.
More information on ABACUS can be found at http://www.abacus.com.sg
About Travel.World.Net
Travel.World.Net (TWN) is an Internet and intranet-based reservation system for the travel and tourism industry.
TWN is designed to give individual suppliers of travel and tourism products a flexible method of distribution. In turn, it gives buyers a comprehensive, but easily navigated, menu of those products – a complete product delivery system for travel and tourism suppliers and buyers.
TWN operates in both the business-to-business and the business-to-consumer e-commerce travel and tourism market spaces. It also operates ‘real-time’ from supplier’s inventory to create a reservation that is automated and self-processing. Additionally the confirmation system is designed to interface with existing GDS systems.
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For more information, please contact:
Irene Boey
Assistant Manager, PR & Events
ZingASIA Pte Ltd
Tel: (65) 3939 757
Fax: (65) 2922 132
E-mail: irene.boey@zingasia.com
Panpac Media.com Unveils Unique Internet-Powered Leisure and Travel Business
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