Scoop.co.nz partners with Bezurk.com to provide online travel search service for New Zealanders

Scoop integrates Bezurk's travel engine on Scoop.co.nz

Singapore, June 21st, 2007 – Scoop, the leading independent news publication in New Zealand, today announced a partnership with the Asia-Pacific Travel Search Engine, Bezurk.com to launch a new travel search engine service for New Zealanders on Scoop.co.nz.

Under the agreement, Bezurk.com will give Scoop.co.nz readers the opportunity to search and compare travel deals across airlines, online travel agencies, hotel chains and hotel aggregators websites quickly at one easy-to-use service.
Research shows that an average traveller visits 3-4 websites to compare prices and products before transacting. Bezurk’s travel search engine allows a user to save both time and money by automating and greatly expanding this comparison shopping process.

"Bezurk’s supplier neutrality allows them to deliver an unbiased comparison of travel products which fits perfectly with the philosophy of our independent news service. We are delighted to be partnering with Bezurk.com and providing our readers with the ability to find the best deals across multiple airline and hotel websites at one time," said Wade Bishop, Scoop’s Business Development Manager.

"Bezurk’s travel search product will be localised for Scoop to include New Zealand-based travel companies so that our readers are presented with the best of both NZ and globally based travel suppliers.”

"Scoop is one of NZ's largest online news resources and attracts a high-value professional audience who are both internet savvy and frequent travellers.” said Craig Hewett, Founder & Chief Marketing Officer, Bezurk.com. “We're delighted to be working with Scoop to introduce our travel search engine to a New Zealand audience.

The service allows users to feel confident that after visiting just one site, they have found the best possible deal. It delivers an incredible range of real-time, detailed information on price, availability, scheduling and more. Search results are presented in a simple, easy-to-use interface, and supported by leading-edge “AJAX” powered sorting and filtering tools. Because Bezurk isn’t a travel agent and doesn’t sell travel themselves users can be confident that the results they see are unbiased.

The upcoming travel search engine will allow New Zealanders to:

- Search for domestic and international flights and airfares
- Compare prices from dozens of merchants, including both online travel agencies and airline websites on the same screen
- Compare prices for domestic and trans-tasman flights inclusive of all airport charges, taxes, fuel surcharges
- Sort search results by price, departure time, arrival time or flight duration
- Search availability and room rates at 100,000+ hotels, hostels and B&Bs worldwide
- Filter search accommodation results by price range, star rating, hotel chain or brand, amenities (eg. broadband internet), property type, booking partner
The travel search engine will be launched in Q3-2007. Any travel supplier that is interested in participating should contact Bezurk.com for more information.

About Scoop.co.nz (scoop.co.nz):

Scoop.co.nz is a “fiercely independent” news website established in 1999 and accredited to the New Zealand Parliament Press Gallery. It is New Zealand’s largest online resource of “raw news content” generated from Business, Central and Regional Government, Education, Health, Science and Technology sectors.
Scoop.co.nz has a readership averaging 500 000 unique browsers a month and recently received 2 finalist awards at the Qantas Media Awards in the Best News Website and Best Single News Report categories.

For more information visit www.scoop.co.nz

Scoop.co.nz Media Contact
Wade Bishop
Business Development Manager
E: wade@scoop.co.nz

About Bezurk (www.Bezurk.com)

Bezurk.com is a comparison-shopping web site that helps travellers from the Asia-Pacific region search for flights, hotels across a multitude of travel websites. Bezurk searches suppliers like the airlines and hotel chains directly but also includes hotel aggregators and online travel agencies. Searching is done in real-time so that results show only the latest pricing and availability.

Bezurk links travellers directly through to partner websites to book. Bezurk, which is headquartered in Singapore, was founded in 2005 by former executives from Intercontinental Hotels Group, Yahoo!, Priceline and ZUJI.
Bezurk.com Media Contact:
press@bezurk.com

ENDS