Cheapflights Limited, the owner of Cheapflights.co.uk, Cheapflights.com and Cheapnights.com, has acquired the Oxford-based software company applefares.com for an undisclosed sum.
Darragh Smyth, the founder of applefares.com and one of Britain's leading specialists in spidering technology, will join Cheapflights on a consultancy basis as "Innovations Manager" with immediate effect.
The new acquisition will deliver proprietary "spidering" technology that allows the real time retrieval of the cheapest travel deals on the Internet. The consideration also includes the purchase of the website applefares.com which is the leading innovator in this field.
The additional technology resulting from the acquisition will allow www.cheapflights.co.uk to be even more comprehensive than it was previously by seeking out several times a day travel deal data from two equally important sectors of the market:
those travel companies that are technologically-constrained and so, historically, have had to provide deal data manually, and
the growing number of low-cost airlines in Europe which do not normally facilitate the distribution of deals by any means other than their own websites.
Cheapflights will brand this new technology 'Cheapseeker' in order to make it consumer-friendly and educate users as to how Cheapflights is working on their behalf to find the best deals. Although this type of technology is already in use by other Internet sites, Cheapflights believes its 'Cheapseeker' will be much more user-friendly - as well as scalable - and will improve the quality and quantity of travel data on the site.
This acquisition is a key part of Cheapflights' technology investment programme focussed on its new Data Management System. This has significantly increased the capacity and quality of user experience of the Cheapflights sites. The programme has enabled the business to streamline its back end, expand its coverage to include non-core flight sections on the site and enable the international roll-out of other Cheapflights sites.
Hugo Burge, COO, Cheapflights Ltd, said
"We are thrilled with this acquisition. We have always believed that by providing the widest range of attractive travel deals we will encourage increasing numbers of viewers to our site. In January, we attracted 1.33 million unique users (source: ABCe) and expect a quantum leap thanks to the improvements to the site which we can now make. In addition we are delighted to attract someone with the creativity and experience of Mr Smyth to our company."
Darragh Smyth, MD of applefares, said
"There is a natural fit between the technology I have developed and the vast consumer reach of Cheapflights. I have always liked the Cheapflights approach which is to put the needs of its viewers first. It is this consumer orientation which makes Cheapflights an ideal home for my spidering technology."
