Ebookers is on its way to profitability

According to its parent firm, Orbitz Worldwide, Ebookers is on its way to profitability. The chief financial officer at Orbitz, Marsha Williams, made that statement.

Williams was discussing Orbitz’s first quarter earnings results when she said that losses at Ebookers have been declining. She added that getting ebookers into profitability would have the benefit of cutting down expenses as well as topping revenue.

Ebookers hopes to achieve both of these goals by transforming its European websites into a global platform.

Steve Barnhart, CEO of Ebookers, said that they are initiating their first multiple language version of their web page in Belgium. Once ebookers completes that process, there are no other major obstacles to introduce similar systems in other countries.

Incidentally, U.K. was the first Ebookers website to migrate into a worldwide platform. In addition, Barnhart confirmed that the U.K. website has been improving its finances for the last three consecutive quarters. Now, it carries thrice the hotel inventory it used to, while accessing all Orbitz Worldwide hotels.

He continued to explain that the U.K. site is driving traffic to U.S. locations. In fact, the total hotel bookings for the first quarter in the U.S. were an astonishing nine times that of first quarter 2007. Unlike other European regions, the macroeconomic environment in the U.K. is not strong. Rather it has been showing signs of weakness for some time, Barnhart said.

Nonetheless, Williams was quick to admit that Ebookers parent, Orbitz was not able to come to EBITDA profitability when looking at separate divisions on an international level.

www.ebookers.com