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(Refiled to correct spelling in first instance of 'referrals')
By Conor Humphries and Padraic Halpin
DUBLIN, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Ryanair aims to take onthe online travel companies with a new website that will offerits 100 million annual passengers flight price comparisons,cheap hotel rooms and location-sensitive restaurant discounts,its chief executive said.
The overhaul of the Ryanair.com site, being developed byabout 200 IT staff hired over the past 18 months, is in part adefensive strategy to avoid becoming dependent on third-partysites such as Skyscanner.com and Google Flights forticket sales.
Ryanair's plans contrast with that of Lufthansa,which is also seeking to direct more customers to its ownwebsite but by introducing a fee for bookings made using theglobal distribution systems (GDSs) such as Amadeus,Sabre andTravelport.
"We want to become the Amazon.com of travel inEurope, with a whole load of additional services: pricecomparison, cut-rate hotels, discounted football tickets,concert tickets," Michael O'Leary told Reuters.
"We want to be the disruptor that goes out and disrupts theoriginal disruptors," he added.
The basic function of the new Ryanair.com website will be afare comparison service that shows the cost of flights from bothRyanair and its rivals.
O'Leary last month contacted the heads of easyJet,Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and BritishAirways and Iberia owner IAG with an offer to sharereal-time fare data.
But easyJet and AirFrance have already rejected the offerand Ryanair is instead considering 'scraping' prices usinginternet tools to show them on the site without their rivals'permission, O'Leary said.
Ryanair sees providing price comparisons as essential if itis to avoid becoming dependent on third-party websites, likeSkyscanner, which O'Leary said failed in an attempt a few yearsago to levy a charge on Ryanair of 3 euros per booking.
Skyscanner makes money through advertising and by chargingairlines fees for booking referrals.
"We need to be careful ... we are very wary not to allowGoogle to become the avenue by which we sell 50, 60, 80 percentof our tickets," he said. Ryanair sells 95 percent of itstickets through its own website, but significant volumes arereferrals from price comparison sites.
Ryanair.com currently sells hotel rooms in a partnershipwith Priceline Group's Booking.com, but O'Leary saidthat Ryanair wants to become a direct distributor of unsoldhotel rooms by charging lower levys than rival sites such asBooking.com and Expedia Inc's Hotels.com.
"We thought ... Why don't we take away the hotel disruptors,the Booking.coms, who the hotels generally hate because theycharge them 40 percent of their revenue, and sell them for 10percent?"
It is intended that the website, which Ryanair says will belaunched this autumn, will also provide user-created reviews ofhotels, restaurants and cities in competition with sites likeTripadvisor, he said.
The site will also try to mimic Amazon.com by harvestingdetailed customer data to push targeted offers by email andsmartphone app in real time, including location-sensitive offersfrom shops and restaurants.
The app will also offer customers ancillary services such asfast-track boarding, allocated seating and extra bags, takingaccount of the customers past buying habits and any specificcircumstances such as delayed flights, heavy traffic or longqueues at security, he said. (Editing by Greg Mahlich)
