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Agoda is an internet company which provides online hotel reservations services for properties focused primarily in the Asia Pacific Region, with offices in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Phuket, Bali, Sydney, Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, and Manila
The company was created by founder Michael Kenny in the late 1990’s under the name PlanetHoliday.com. The initial concept was to use the burgeoning power of search engines to fill a perceived void of hotel and travel information. PlanetHoliday was one of the first hotel reservation websites in an industry which has subsequently grown into a multi-billion dollar business.
Kenny, originally from Long Island, New York, migrated to Thailand in the early 90’s and set up the website with a small operation on the island of Phuket.The website (and industry as a whole) has survived various unforeseen catastrophic events, including the “dot com” meltdown of 2000-2001, as well as the New York terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the SARS outbreak in 2003, both of which devastated the travel industry.
In 2002, operations moved from Phuket to Bangkok and in 2003 PrecisionReservations.com was added as a partner website designed to sell reservations through affiliate websites. Later in 2003 PlanetHoliday.com and PrecisionReservations.com were combined under Agoda Company Pte. Ltd.
In November 2007 Agoda Company was acquired by Priceline.com (NASDAQ: PCLN) becoming their third international acquisition."Agoda acquisition by Priceline" It now has approximately 300 employees and offers users search availability services in 21 languages including Chinese, English, French, Spanish, Japanese and Thai, among others.
Agoda has won the Best accommodation site category in the Travelmole Web Awards Asia 2008."Travelmole 2008 Web Awards"5
from Wikipedia
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