Leading online travel agent On the Beach has launched the industry’s first group booking application on Facebook. Beach Mate is a collaborative tool which manages flight and hotel bookings made with On the Beach. The application allows Facebook users to invite their friends and family to join them on holiday without having the hassle of booking for the entire group.

Once a customer has made a flight and hotel booking at the On the Beach website, the customer is given a unique reference number. The customer then inputs this number into ‘Beach Mate’ and their flight and hotel booking appears on their Beach Mate page.

Friends and family can then follow the Beach Mate link which will direct them to the product specific booking page at On the Beach. Beach Mate is available now to all Facebook users.

On the Beach created Beach Mate to make group bookings a simple and easy process, taking the onus away from the party organiser. With more than 18,000 fans on its dedicated Facebook page, On the Beach now has the largest Facebook fan base of any online travel agent.

Alistair Daly, Marketing Director at On the Beach said; “Organising a group holiday can be very stressful and time consuming, not to mention expensive as the person organising the holiday often find themselves out of pocket. Beach Mate is not only fun to use, but it will also take all the stress away from organising a group holiday.”