By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA (AA) – Leading travel search engine Skyscanner will be acquired by Chinese online travel agent Ctrip.com, a company statement revealed on Thursday.
The U.K.-based search engine announced Ctrip would pay shareholders £1.4 billion (approx. $1.75 billion) for the acquisition agreement.
Skyscanner said the transaction was expected to close by the end of 2016, and the current management team would continue to manage Skyscanner’s operations independently as part of the Ctrip group.
"This acquisition will strengthen long-term growth drivers for both companies. Skyscanner will complement our positioning at a global scale and Ctrip will leverage our experience, technology and booking capabilities to Skyscanner’s," said James Jianzhang Liang, co-founder and executive chairman of Ctrip.
Gareth Williams, Skyscanner co-founder and CEO said Ctrip was the clear market leader in China and a company they could learn a huge amount from.
“Today’s news takes Skyscanner one step closer to our goal of making travel search as simple as possible for travelers around the world," said Williams.
Skyscanner, founded in 2003, provides services for journey planning and flight tickets.
According to the company, its mobile app, free to use, has been downloaded over 50 million times. The search engine offers services in over 30 languages and 70 currencies. Skyscanner employs over 800 staff in more than 10 offices across the world.
Ctrip, founded in 1999, is one of the leading service providers in China for flight ticketing, travel management, hotel and car reservations.
According to the company, Ctrip's hotel reservation network covers one million properties in around 200 countries while flight ticketing options linked over 5,000 cities across the world.