Travelport appoints new CEO, forms new long-term partnership with Webjet

Travel technology company Travelport has announced that its board of directors has named Greg Webb as CEO, effective 1 August 2019.

Webb succeeds Gordon Wilson, who will step down as the president and CEO of Travelport. Webb will also join Travelport’s board of directors.

Most recently, Webb served as the senior vice president and general manager of Oracle Hospitality. Prior to Oracle, Webb was the vice chairman at Sabre – a company he spent 20 years at in various executive positions.

John Swainson, executive chairman of Travelport and an executive partner at Siris, said: “Gordon has been great to work with throughout the process, leading to Siris’ decision to invest in the company and the transition of its leadership.

“He has made an enormous contribution to Travelport over the years and we wish him well with his next endeavours.

“I also want to give a warm welcome to Greg, whose industry knowledge, customer-focused experience and understanding of how to best monetise technology platforms will provide Travelport with strong leadership in this new era.”

Webb said he was “delighted” to be joining Travelport, “especially at such an exciting and transformative time for the company”.

“I look forward to working with the Travelport leadership team and employees to continue to deliver innovative solutions and offer our customers great products and great service,” he said.

Commenting on his departure, Wilson said: “I celebrated 28 years with the company in May and have been president and CEO since 2011. It is time for me to hand over to someone else to run this business and the recent change in ownership of Travelport is the right occasion for this to happen.

“I firmly believe that Travelport’s new investors, Siris Capital and Evergreen Coast Capital, will be good for the company and I am delighted to be handing over to an executive as well-tenured and experienced in travel technology as Greg Webb.

“Travelport is a great business full of great people who will work hand-in-hand with Greg, focusing all their collective skills and expertise to take the company to its next level of growth and success.”

Travelport has also announced it has been awarded a new long-term technology contract by online travel agency Webjet, following an extensive competitive bid process.

Under the agreement, Webjet will participate in initiatives driven by Travelport involving IATA’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) standard.

NDC is a travel industry-supported program launched by IATA that will enable the travel industry to transform the way air products are retailed to corporations, leisure and business travellers.

Travelport was the first GDS operator to manage live bookings using the new standard in October 2018.

Webjet will soon deploy Travelport Trip Services, allowing it to utilise the industry’s latest APIs to perform mobile-optimised search across the full range of Travelport content.

Travelport’s chief commercial officer, Stephen Shurrock, said: “Webjet is one of the most advanced and agile online travel agencies with whom we work globally.

“We are proud of the role Travelport has played in contributing to its success and look forward to extending this with technology initiatives, including NDC, to serve customers better and continue our leadership in online travel provision.”

Shelley Beasley, group chief commercial officer at Webjet, said: “We are delighted to extend our agreement with Travelport.

“The company has been a highly-valued technology partner to Webjet for close to 20 years and we continue to be impressed by the quality, speed and reliability of its solutions as well as its dedication to lead change in the industry, which now extends to IATA NDC.”