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Hotels4u.com aims for £100m turnover
Online trade-only accommodation firm hotels4u.com expects turnover to reach £50 million this year – up from £6 million in three years since its inception.
Passenger numbers have grown from 40,000 to in excess of 350,000 in the period.
The company claims to be “perfectly positioned” to continue its expansion next year, aiming to double business 2007 and reach a turnover target of £100 million.
The company confirmed that it will act as a principal from November 20 after completing a full review of its ongoing commercial terms – following youtravel.com.
Hotels4u sales and marketing Director John Harding said: “The trade is looking for clear and unambiguous guidance and hotels4u.com have decided that the time is right to show a clear way forward. Agents can now relax and be confident that we will provide full product liability as the market leader.”
Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers committed its support as a major shareholder assuring financial backing to help expand the business in 2004-05.
Harding attributed much of the company’s growth to the changing market place and developing attitudes towards dynamic packaging.
“During the first 18 months the majority of sales were filtering through the call centres driven by Teletext advertising. However, in 2005 a growing number of high street agents began to recognise the demand for dynamic packaging and therefore began to tailor their marketing campaigns accordingly.
“hotels4u.com also appointed additional hotel contractors and resort representation which quickly improved the product and sharpened pricing. This helped grow the business profitably in the second year to a turnover of £29 million and passenger numbers exceeding 200,000.”
He added: “We believe that the key to hotels4u.com’s ongoing prosperity is the continued expansion of our partnerships with the retail travel trade and the growing trend in homeworking.
“We now have six full time staff employed to give agents and homeworkers the support they require to grow their business, plus over 50 staff employed in the UK and in resort to continually improve the product and service levels.”
Report by Phil Davies
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