In the global hotel competition among online travel agencies, all of the buzz is about Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America, but what about Africa?
Expedia won a piece of business in Africa through an affiliate deal with South African Airways.
South African Airways will get access to hotel inventory from the Expedia Affiliate Network for the 35 destinations the carrier serves, the companies say.
The airline says it expects the partnership to be implemented "later this year" and its passengers will be able to book Expedia hotels on the airline's website.
South African Airlines will access the Expedia Affiliate Network hotel inventory through the EAN API and the solution will also use the Datalex Travel Distribution Platform, the companies say.
Datalex currently provides ancillary services and merchandising services to the airline in its home market, and South African Airways uses Octopus Travel (GTA) for hotels.
Expedia appears to be replacing GTA, which Travelport sold to Kuoni Travel Holding, for hotels.
South African Airways and Expedia revealed their partnership a day after Travelport closed on its GTA-Kuoni transaction.
South African Airways and Expedia didn't mention the GTA angle in their announcement.
However, Marc Cavaliere, the airline's vice president of global sales development, stated: "We are very pleased to be working with Expedia as our new hotel service provider. We selected EAN because they allow us to offer our customers a tremendously robust inventory of hotel properties worldwide at very attractive rates."