Mid-July will see the world’s leading online travel expert, Expedia, unveil a new agency program in India.

Expedia will join forces with the Mumbai based operator Discover the World Marketing to provide first level sales and customer support services for the rapidly booing Indian travel market.

The move will increase Expedia’s position in the Indian sector, with the Travel Agents Affiliate Programme (TAAP) set for release in a little under one month. In line with the introduction of the new offer, Expedia.co.in will also be waiving membership for a period of three months.

Member agents who sign on to the TAAP benefit from the capability to view the Expedia.co.in inventory of car rentals, air and hotel bookings, and also great range destination activities, with bookings available through a dedicated, individual login and password. In addition to the free membership period of three months, travel agents will also be offered a temporary high rate of 12 per cent commission for all hotel bookings, which will revert back to the standard 10 per cent thereafter.

To ensure that the Indian programme experiences effective domestic promotion, Expedia has collaborated with Discover the World Marketing, making the most of promotion to local travel agents through the use of a range of marketing strategies tailored its service the Indian tourism sector.

Expedia’s Manager for Travel Agent Distribution APAC, Stuart Udy, said the launch would follow similar successful undertakings in various other markets such as Italy, Germany, Canada, Australia, the UK, France, New Zealand and the USA.

Leading travel advice and feedback website operator has announced the acquisition of vacation rental specialist Holiday Lettings.

A subsidiary of online global travel Expedia, TripAdvisor is now in charge of what is acknowledged as the largest independent UK vacation rental website. TripAdvisor takes over Holiday Lettings from the British-based property website operator Rightmove, which sold its majority interest in the website for an undisclosed sum.

Rightmove had originally acquired a stake of 66.67 per cent in Holiday Lettings back in March 2007, though it recently stated in its half yearly report that it would classify the site as a discontinued operation, following the disposition of gross assets totalling £1 million.

40,000 vacation rental properties are currently advertised by Holiday Lettings on behalf of property managers, letting agents and private owners. The inventory stretches across 116 countries, ranging from apartments and villas to windmills and farmhouses, houseboats to yurts. 25 million visitors access the site each year according to the official press release.

TripAdvisor launched vacation rentals in 2009, following the acquisition in 2008 of the US-based Flipkey website. The takeover signals that the group is ramping up its competition with vacation rental leader HomeAway. Holidaylettings.co.uk will continue as an independent website.

TripAdvisor Media Group has now grown to encompass 17 different travel brands with the latest acquisition, collectively attracting around 46 million unique global visitors every month.