The AU site is in beta already - as you can see from this shot - so Brad starts with something to work on.
For those of you that don't know Travelzoo are a NASDAQ listed company with a market cap of about US$320 based on revenues of $75mm. Their difference is that they are neither a retailer or a pure review/content/network site. They are a deal hunter. They use screened advertiser driven content to provide consumers with deals and specials.
If the rumours prove true, Brad may find himself working for Priceline. Would be the first Priceline employee in Australia since they shut down the Myprice joint venture with Telstra during the boom.
Congratulations to Brad on the new job. Not sure yet what this will mean for Lastminute staff retention post the Wotif acquisition.
UPDATE - Hotelmarket.com are reporting that the Sydney office will open on Nov 15 to be followed by a Taipei office on December 1
UPDATE 2 - Reliable rumours that in January at least one maybe more US based Travelzoo staff will be seconded to Sydney for an extended time to help Brad with the set up.
4 comments:
I have known Brad for over 6 years, its a great loss for Lastminute and a win for Travelzoo.
He will have his work cut out for him with Travelzoo as they are late into Australia plus the Travelzoo product seems a little unsophisticated for Australians with deals that seem unstructured and random with limited filtering tools.
Brad, good luck in taming the Australian travel industry zoo - there are two big angry aggressive gorillas to tame ( Both of their names start with "W")
i think Brad is up to the challenge
This model has been and gone in Australia. The challenge is that everyone has the same deals and specials. One retailer online or offline does not have a $1000 airfare to London whilst everyone else has a $1500 airfare to London.
In the early days of the web TVL used to get exclusive offers to channel via the web until mainstream bozos threatened airlines with boycotts unless they got the same deal.
It's a very level boring playing field now - TZ will have no point of differentiation.
I'll give TZ and Brad 1 year max and even then they'll be lucky to make the top 10 in travel on Hitwise.
one forgets the content they can sell inbound !!!!!!!!!!
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