Financial crisis hits Travel.co.uk

Thursday, 18 Dec, 2008 0

The founder and two key staff of start-up holiday comparison website Travel.co.uk are standing down.

The economic financial crisis is being blamed for having a “major impact” on development plans designed to make the site profitable in 2009.

“To meet this new and unexpected financial challenge a decision has been taken to slow down the development and marketing plans for the site,” a statement said.

Managing director Ray Mason, marketing manager Vicky smith and head of customer experience Mike Ramsden are all leaving the company by the new year.

Mason said: “"The timing of the downturn in the economy and the travel sector in particular could perhaps have been better for us launching a new online travel business.

“However, even though it is disappointing that we have not been able to implement all of our plans for the site at this time, in designing and building the current travel.co.uk website we have introduced many innovative search and comparison features which had not been seen before on travel websites.

“I am pleased to confirm that Travel.co.uk will continue to delight customers but it will now have just one fulfillment agent to provide consistency in delivering customer service.”

No further details on the future of the site, launched just five months ago, were disclosed.

“Visitor numbers and bookings delivered to agents since the summer have grown steadily with natural Google search results driving the majority of the traffic, even in these early months,” the statement said.

No details of traffic levels were provided.

*Travel.co.uk has nothing to do with The Travel Company Edinburgh, The Travel Company Online or any of the subsidiaries.

by Phil Davies

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Phil Davies

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