Alex Francis, LoveHolidays.com
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Alex Francis tells Travel Daily about starting up a new online travel agent and competing with the online giants
How did the launch of LoveHolidays.com come about?
It started when my wife wanted to book a shopping holiday and we found all that online travel agents (OTAs) asked us to choose a destination first although we didn’t know we didn’t have one in mind. We discovered it was hard to search by facilities or themes so originally we decided to build a search list that included anything you might want to do or need on holiday.
This led to the creation of the meta-search engine TravelMatch, which is what we used to build LoveHolidays.com on. LoveHolidays now holds major tour operator packages and dynamic packaging options too so customers can choose criteria and do a price comparison.
Customers know there is a ‘safe haven’ with tour operators but can be expensive, so the dynamic packaging underneath that compares companies like Thomas Cook and Thomson with LoveHolidays options.
The site launched in January 2012, what has business been like?
We grew at a phenomenal rate last year and have beaten all numbers so far in 2013 in comparison. When a company like ours is not well known and we go from nothing to having lots of bookings and sales with the likes of Thomas Cook then it is positive.
In 2013 we are looking to grow five times more, than double in 2014 and 2015. We want to be the elite of lowcostholidays and those similar.
How does the technology make the site different from others?
In an online world price comparison and meta-search is common but it is not the same as LoveHolidays.com as we have allowed more options and functions.
The site does not work on APIs, there is information coming in but hotels tell us the price they would set for each day of the year and we display that so customers can be more flexible when they search. We sell both packages and dynamic package ourselves and monitor prices all the time which means we hold our own data.
There is a new Q&A tool so hotels can interact direct with customers and we want to create a community around that, plus have independent reviews on the site alongside TripAdvisor. We have introduced a low deposit scheme and for the dynamic packaging options our customers can pay four weeks before departure.
There is also a new ‘spread the cost’ option as people want to book for December or into 2014, pay the low deposit and then direct debits after that. It has the security of booking but helping them out too and it’s part of our aim to be consumer focused and compete with the likes of Expedia.
What functions would you like to add in the future?
In the future we will be building a system that enables customers to compare flights based on ‘including baggage’ and will list all the providers accordingly. This is important as currently people won’t search each airline website and it is often the case that traditional carriers are cheaper than low-cost carriers but miss out because of the initial price listing.
We want to ensure customers have all the information at their disposal before making a booking with TripAdvisor and imagery from previous stayers.
We’d like to expand the dynamic packaging offering with more suppliers and take the search further with building around specific events.
There is also scope for a city breaks platform to be built later this year and we can utilise Facebook more too to create the community and help people see what is going on.
What trends have you noticed in booking patterns?
The lates trend gets later each year and we have a substantial number of people departing three or four days after their booking. But because our deposit scheme is so aggressive we find people are booking in advance too and most of the lates market is heading to the Mediterranean.
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