Price line looks to open OpenTable office in Dubai

Dubai: Priceline Group, the biggest US online travel agent, looks to open an office in Dubai for OpenTable, a restaurant booking company, its top executive said.

Price line is in early talks with the authorities and hopes to open the office in the next 12 months, Darren Huston, president and chief executive of the company, told Gulf News in an interview on Tuesday.

“We may open an OpenTable office in Dubai and build a team here. We are really interested in the local restaurant scene and bringing restaurants onto internet-based reservation. I think it’s going to work great here — people are already mobile-enabled,” he said.

Price line bought OpenTable for $2.6 billion last year.

The company already has seven offices in the Middle East for Booking.com, an online travel agent, including three in Turkey and one each in Dubai, Jeddah, Tel Aviv and Cairo. It is considering opening two more in Doha and Amman, Huston said.