Partner With Us

Hispanic Web portal Starmedia Networks on Tuesday announced plans to jump into the fast-growing online travel industry, in partnership with Miami-based travel site Despegar.com.

The two companies, which both target Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Web users, said a co-branded travel channel would be created on StarMedia's portal to function as an online aggregator of travel resources and tools for users.

Financial terms of the partnership were not provided but StarMedia believes the co-branded channel would generate and reduce production costs. Among other things, the channel would offer online travel booking and travel-specific content.

For instance, a StarMedia user would have access to in-depth country and city guides and community forums for information on air travel, hotels and car reservations.

The announcement of the partnership comes on the same day when market research firm Harris Interactive and Nielsen/NetRatings released a survey highlighting the dramatic growth of the online travel industry.

The survey said online travel industry sales reached $1.2 billion in January, nearly one-third of all e-commerce transactions.

"This marks a dollar increase of 29 percent from six months ago when consumers spent $943 million on online travel in August 2000, setting the highest level since monthly surveys began last April," the survey said.

In a statement, StarMedia CEO Fernando Espuelas described the deal as a "strategic business initiative."

"Our partnership with Despegar.com, is a strategic business initiative that enables StarMedia's Network to generate revenues for our top line, offer a richer and deeper online experience to our users -- all while lowering our overall production costs," Espuelas said.

He said StarMedia's travel channel would target both business and leisure travelers and offer access to more than 500 airlines, 50 car rental companies, 50,000 hotels and 1,500 vacation packages.

"As part of the integration, users will also be able to receive travel-related updates and information via their cellular phones utilizing SMS and WAP technologies," the company said.

* Got tips or comments? E-mail atNewYork.com.