Travelocity Business, the US online agency for corporate travel, has opened its first service centre in Europe.
The centre will be based in Amersham in southern England and serve the travel needs of up to 12 American multi-nationals with offices in Europe.
It also plans to attract business from European firms and hopes to start expanding into other European countries by the last quarter of 2006.
Jason Stockwood, managing director of the UK operation, said he will head a team of 14 based at the Amersham service centre which will offer "a full service" for corporate clients and at Stockport, near Manchester which will handle hotel reservations.
The European operation has been launched in the wake of the acquisition of the UK online travel company lastminute.com last year by Sabre Holdings on behalf of its subsidiary Travelocity.
Sabre's purchase included lastminute.com's two companies handling corporate travel, First Options, based in Stockport and Travelstore, based in Amersham.
These companies have now been merged under Mr Stockwood's leadership to form the UK arm of Travelocity Business.
Mr Stockwood told BTE that his service centre would be offering a balance between "a full range of services" and up to date IT which has been brought in from America over the last months.
He said he regarded Expedia as his main competitor but planned to price his product "strongly and aggressively."
He added: "We have a good base here to serve the US multi-nationals and we want then to exploit the opportunities as they come up."
He said that by the fourth quarter of the year "we hope to be driving ticketing out of our Barcelona office" but after that he said there was "no particular order" for the company's expansion into continental Europe.
"It will be where lastminute.com has been successful," he said which suggests early targets might be France, Germany and Scandinavia.
* see BTE Analysis
* see BTE's new job recruitment website www.businesstraveljobs.com