PARIS, FRANCE–(Marketwire – Sept. 27, 2010) – SNCF Voyages, the European leader in high speed and long distance rail services, announced today the acquisition of a majority stake in liligo.com, a leading French travel search engine. This acquisition re-inforces SNCF Voyages’ appetite for developing consumer-centric online services in France and across Europe.
Liligo.com will remain an independent unit within SNCF Voyages in order to maintain the focus on the development of its brand and community of users.
“We are strong believers in the travel search model and SNCF Voyages has now chosen to become active in this space,” commented Pierre Alzon, General Manager of Voyages-SNCF.com”. “Given its innovative technology and high powered team, liligo.com was a natural choice for us. We’re very happy to join forces with Pierre Bonelli and his team”.
Barbara Dalibard, Managing Director of SNCF Voyages added: “The acquisition of liligo.com marks an important step in our strategy to help make travel planning as easy as possible for our clients by offering them state of the art travel search tools”.
“After 4 years of intense work in the service of the travel consumer, we’re very pleased to team up with France’s leading travel company” said Pierre Bonelli, CEO and co-founder of liligo.com. “The liligo brand will now have the means to accelerate its growth across Europe. I take this opportunity to thank the very talented and passionate liligo.com team, as well as our investors Alven Capital and Orkos Capital, whose strong support was essential to our success so far”.
About liligo.com
liligo.com is a pioneer in delivering impartial and comprehensive travel search results in real-time, by querying over 250 sites (online travel agencies, airlines including over 70 low-cost operators, hotels, car rental providers…), to consumers in France and across Europe. Liligo.com is a Paris and Budapest-based startup which was founded by Pierre Bonelli, Bertrand de la Ruelle, Xavier Corbel and Mikael Quilfen in 2005 and funded by venture capitalists Alven Capital and Orkos Capital.
About SNCF Voyages
As the European leader in high speed and long distance rail services, SNCF Voyages operates the following brands: TGV, Téoz, iDTGV, Eurostar, Thalys, TGV Lyria, Elipsos, Artesia. In order to offer its clients a complete « point to point » service, SNCF Voyages manages sales, distribution and service on board, as well as several subsidiaries such as voyages-sncf.com.
SNCF Voyages operates 475 trains, transports 130 million passengers per year and generates annual sales of more than 7 billion euros, 20% of which in international markets.