Lastminute poised for trade launch of dynamic packaging

Following the acquisition of UK hotel consolidator and package holiday reseller, Med Hotels, lastminute.com says it is almost ready to launch dynamic packaging for agents. Lastminute executive director and vice chairman, Clive Jacobs told TravelMole: “Med Hotels is a wonderful fit for us, it is the part of the jigsaw that was missing”. Lastminute will pay £16.1 million for Med Hotels, which includes Travel Bargains Limited. It has a database of over 1500 resort based in Greece, Spain, the Canaries, Cyprus, Tunisia and Portugal. Mr Jacobs added: “The plans are to offer a substantial trade offering, which is what we already have with Holiday Autos and our flights consolidator, which sells wholesale, Globepost. “I started Holiday Hotels with a view to selling resort hotels through the trade, and that is what Med Hotels does. Holiday Hotels didn’t grow that quickly, but Med Hotels has.” Mr Jacobs says the two companies will be merged and run by the current Med Hotels chief executive, John Kent. Mr Jacobs said he did not anticipate any redundancies, but added: “In my position you can’t always say for sure.” He added: “Med Hotels brings us a solid product and to that end it is a great business in its own right. It is like Holiday Autos in that it has cornered the market.” Mr Jacobs said he would follow the same expansion strategy with Med Hotels as he did with Holiday Autos, establishing it in France, Spain, Germany and the Nordic region. “Expanison is two fold in this industry – organic and through acquisition and we hope to grow through both and achieve our target of £2 billion turnover by 2005”, said Mr Jacobs. Speaking on the issue of dynamic packaging, Mr Jacobs told TravelMole: “I feel passionately now that agents are at a disadvantage because package holiday sales are down – despite what you might hear the other industry people saying. “People want more freedom over their bookings. If travel agents are going to be more effective, they must be able to dynamically package product. That is what we will be launching in the Spring.” Lastminute already offers dynamic packaging for the B2C market, but Mr Jacobs says it has taken a lot of investment and time to put together a back office required for dynamic packaging for B2B. “It functions the same but the difference is the payment and commission processing” he said.