Monday, May 23, 2011

New Job - CEO Getaway Lounge


Today marked my first day in a new job as CEO of travel start up Getaway Lounge. We are days away from launching a travel deal site focused on the Australian market

Getaway Lounge is a travel only private sale site offering great discount travel deals launched as an independent company funded by Nine Entertainment Co (NEC).

Two reasons (other than me) that Getaway Lounge is different to a regular travel deal a day launch. First NEC gives us access unrivaled online and offline marketing in Australia. Second, the brand Getaway Lounge will be associated with the Getaway TV show – Australia’s number one travel TV show. Ninesmsn (one of Australia’s largest websites and a company part owned by NEC) will help with online marketing

As you know PhoCusWright in their recent APAC report put the online travel market in Australia at $11.3 billion in 2010 (35% of the total market). You may not have heard that IBISworld say that group buying in Australia has gone from near zero to a $377mm dollar a year business with travel and accommodation accounting for $110.4mm or 1% of the online travel market.

Wish me luck and more on the launch soon

If you feel like helping me out, please like Getaway Lounge on Facebook and follow Getaway Lounge on twitter.

I will still be blogging regularly here at the BOOT and on Tnooz

17 comments:

Lina Ang said...

Sounds exciting Tim. All the best!

Chetan Kapoor said...

Congrats Tim!

Look forward to reading more about it in the coming days. Good luck!

Tim Hughes said...

@Lina - thanks - best to you too

@Chetan - thanks - more very soon

notu said...

Congratulations and all the best!

Chris Chambers said...

Good luck Tim. It will be very interesting to see how this new site comes into the market and the impact you and the team are going to be able to make.

Tim Hughes said...

@Taoufik - thanks

@Chris - all good fun!. See you soon

Claude said...

All the best for this new life.

I am the 161 FAN :)

Penny Arabiata said...

Penny Arabiata wishes you all the best, Tim.

We're watching with interest.

Hurrah!

Tim Hughes said...

@Claude and @Penny - thanks. Am enjoying it

Dan Wacksman said...

Good Luck Tim, seems like a great opportunity!!

Tim Hughes said...

@Dan - thanks Dan. Hope all well with you

Tough Biz said...

That sounds great Tim!

I hope your having a great time. Good luck on your new journey.

By the way, I followed @getawaylounge on twitter!

Cathy Cotton said...

Fantastic news! Sounds like an amazing journey ahead.

steve sherlock said...

hey good one Tim!

I always thought you'd make a dynamic startup CEO.

Ivanka will be proud of you! ;-)

Tim Hughes said...

@Cathy - thanks. Great to see you recently. One of the great nights out

@Steve - thanks. If you see Ivanka - get her to call me

Anonymous said...

Tim, I've just read your 2011 blog as I've only recently discovered getaway lounge. I am really impressed with the site, however as I have 5 in our family I would love to see more deals for a family of 5.

Tim Hughes said...

@Anon - thanks for the comment. We are working really hard on getting family deals. They are much harder to get than single room deals.