Darjeelin, a France-based startup which describes itself as a crowd-sourced travel agency has been acquired by l’Officiel des Vacances, a travel deals site.

Darjeelin, which launched almost two years ago, allows users to access ‘flight hackers’ including frequent flyers, travel agents and other experienced travellers to help find the best priced flights.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed but the two companies hope to combine to ‘offer a human travel search engine.’

L’Officiel-des-Vacances.com is a subsidiary of Voyage Privé Group and a statement about the acquisition says it will mean ‘strong added value compared to automated metasearchers.’

Frederic Ploix, managing Director of L’Officiel des Vacances says:

“We’ll now be able to offer our users a unique experience of personalization. It confirms our positioning as a hybrid service, taking the best both from technology and human expertise.”

Charles Guilhamon, CEO and cofounder of Darjeelin adds:

“We’re happy and proud to join Voyage Privé Group. We’re looking forward to work together to continue demonstrating that human powered services make a lot of sense in this collaborative era .”

Original author: Linda Fox