WASHINGTON D.C. – March 20th, 2014 – The Washington Times, one of America’s top newspapers, has announced its partnership with Yellowstone Hotel Systems, dba: OpenBook, to provide comprehensive online travel planning to its readers and the general public. With the slogan “Travel with Trust” accompanying this new partnership, which combines The Washington Times’ long standing trustworthy news coverage with the new ability for readers to book travel through its website, now travelers can read an article about an upcoming event or popular travel destination and book the associated trip on the spot.
The partnership, aimed at providing online bookings of hotels, airfare, car rental, and various other travel services, is poised to take the travel industry by storm. In an industry saturated with travel service providers, The Washington Times has positioned itself to offer competitive online travel technology coupled with its unique ability to produce expert coverage of the world’s top travel destinations, and popular events; coverage which is largely unheard of through current online travel agencies.
“The travel industry has always had a need for content, for expert coverage of specific events and travel destinations. Content builds trust, it builds legitimacy, but it has been one of the greatest challenges for online travel agencies to produce,” Stated Zack Paul, CEO of OpenBook. “The Washington Times has now positioned itself to meet this need as an established and credible news agency, and OpenBook’s partnership has provided the technology to make them a legitimate competitor within the travel industry.”
Currently, these travel services can be found on many pages of The Washington Times website, branded as “The Washington Times Travel Center”. While present functionality allows visitors only to book lodging, future services will expand offerings to airfare and car rental. Over the coming months, expect to see increased publicity of this new technology as The Washington Times works to not only produce great news coverage, as it always has, but also provide a way for readers to experience first-hand the events and destinations outlined in these articles.
