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In France, ferry has gone mainstream

Groundbreaking distribution partnership grants ferry operators access to leading French E-commerce site

With 23 million unique visitors a month and €4 billion annual sales in 2019, Cdiscount is the French Ecommerce Leader.

READING, 02 February 2021: Long-term user of Pharos’ ferry reservations service La Centrale des Ferries launched distribution of ferry tickets with France’s leading E-commerce platform Cdiscount in spring 2020.

Pharos enhanced its B2B2C booking engine already deployed by La Centrale des Ferries with advanced SEO functionality to meet Cdiscount’s exacting online marketing standards.

Owned by French retail giant Groupe Casino, Cdiscount is France’s leading online merchant, with growth 9.1% in 2019.

Book ferry at ferry.cdiscount.com

Alan Warburton, Managing Director of Pharos Data Ltd., commented: “Cdiscount’s 10 million customers now benefit from being able to buy their ferry tickets, where they’re already used to booking flights, accommodation and holiday packages – all without having to create new user profiles or re-entering their payment details.

In contrast to other travel, where modern technology rides on sophisticated trade alliances and partners to reach vast audiences in dynamic media representation, ferry lags behind. With a falling share of travel spend the sector is in need of significantly improved retail distribution to match mainstream travel and ensure that ferry is offered in mainstream travel search results: The partnership between La Centrale des Ferries and Cdiscount is one of these rare but urgently needed B2B cooperations.”

About  La Centrale des Ferries:

La Centrale des Ferries is a French travel agency based in Paris and specialising exclusively in sea crossings. With more than 1000 passenger maritime links in Europe and North Africa, La Centrale des Ferries offers a wide choice of possibilities for travellers.

With a young and dynamic team, the agency offers reservations mainly through its website and call centre which makes customer service and supporting travellers a priority.  It is the only French ferry platform offering these services.

About Pharos Data:

Founded in 1992, Pharos is a dedicated IT service provider in ferry reservation and distribution technology. Based in Reading, UK and Frankfurt, Germany, the Pharos technology hub connects to 35+ ferry operators throughout Europe, enabling resellers to trade through a commercially transparent interface while providing an important distribution channel to ferry companies. Clients include Brittany Ferries, Directferries.com, Omio and many tour and automobile organisations.