Cheapflights Ltd., the leading UK and North American internet travel media company which pioneered online flight price comparison, is pleased to announce that Francesca Ecsery-Merrens will join the Company as General Manager, United Kingdom with effect from 1st August, 2007.
Based in London, Francesca will report directly to Chris Cuddy, Cheapflights' Group Managing Director. Francesca comes to Cheapflights with in-depth knowledge and experience of the travel industry gained over fourteen years. She was most recently Managing Director, International Division, of STA Travel, the student and under-26 travel company whose business extends over 76 countries, 32 of which were secured under her leadership.
She also built STA's presence in the Chinese market place into a contributor to group profits and, in addition, led STA's travel ventures in Africa.
Prior to STA, she was Group Managing Director of IfYouTravel.com and previously held senior management and marketing roles at AirTours (MyTravel), Going Places and also Thomas Cook. Francesca has also worked at McKinsey & Co followed by Pepsico where she held positions in marketing and promotions.
A graduate of Geneva University in Political Science and International Relations, Francesca is also a Graduate of the Harvard Business School. She is an accomplished linguist, speaking English, French, Portuguese, Hungarian, Spanish and Italian.
Commenting, Cheapflights' Group Managing Director Chris Cuddy said: "We are impressed as much by Francesca's business and travel industry experience as with her evident energy and enthusiasm which she has clearly applied successfully in her career to date. Francesca's appointment comes at a time when Cheapflights has secured a leading position in online flight price search and comparison on both sides of the Atlantic. Cheapflights is now pursuing further international expansion. Hence her appointment will enable CEO David Soskin and Vice Chairman and Head of International, Hugo Burge to focus on this planned internationalisation of Cheapflights."
CEO David Soskin added: "We have created a successful international internet brand. Our business has grown from a tiny Wandsworth attic over the past eleven years without recourse to external funding. One of the key reasons for achieving our success to date has been recruiting the people with the energy and enthusiasm to achieve our strategy goals. In welcoming Francesca to her challenging new role at Cheapflights, I recognise in her the qualities we require to drive our UK business further forward as we also accelerate our international growth."
Francesca Ecsery-Merrens added: "Cheapflights is one of the best established internet travel brands. It has successfully met the ever-changing challenges of this dynamic and exciting market sector. I am looking forward to working with the team at Cheapflights whose combined experience and skills represent one of the world’s best internet travel teams.
Notes to Editors
Cheapflights Ltd.: Founded in 1996 and profitable since launch, Cheapflights is the UK’s leading UK flight price comparison website and pioneered the travel price comparison model on the Internet. It also introduced the pay-per-click business model to the UK in 2000.
Cheapflights is one of the few British internet companies successfully to establish an operation in the USA www.cheapflights.com. Launched in May 2003, and currently with 2.6 million unique users a month, Cheapflights.com is already in the top 13 US travel sites (Hitwise US).
In April 2007, Cheapflights launched in Canada (www.cheapflights.ca).
In May 2007 Cheapflights appointed LongAcre Partners, one of Europe’s leading independent corporate finance advisory houses focused on the internet and media markets, to advise it on its options in relation to a "Liquidity Event" during 2007.
Cheapflights does not sell any flight deals or travel products. Each day, it sorts millions of flight prices from hundreds of travel partners worldwide. It then publishes a filtered current list of the best deals. These deals can be accessed online or by telephone direct with the advertiser from links or information on our site. This makes Cheapflights one of the most comprehensive independent online publishers of flight deals available. It also has well established opt-in subscription weekly newsletters on both sides of the Atlantic with over 4 million subscribers. The Company has launched UK and USA "Flight News" blog sites, news.cheapflights.co.uk; and news.cheapflights.com. These have become major interactive communities to inform and assist travel consumers on both sides of the Atlantic.
Hitwise's statistics show Cheapflights as being the UK's top vertical search and price comparison site for flights for the past 17 quarters. Cheapflights now accounts for just under 1% of all UK PPC advertising and 3.2% of all UK online travel display adverts according to recently released IAB figures. The Company's unique user numbers reached almost 6 million globally in January 2007.
Cheapflights estimates that it generated travel product sales of over US$1.8 billion for its advertising partners in 2006. These advertisers read like a Who’s Who of the travel world - ranging from British Airways, Thomson, Expedia, Travelocity, TUI and Thomas Cook to specialist operators like STA Travel, Mark Warner and Iglu.com.
In January 2007 Cheapflights invested in the Icelandic global flights planner, dohop ltd and is represented on the dohop.com Board. The dohop.com free website enables travellers to research available flight routes and scheduled departures and arrivals worldwide and operates as a separate business to Cheapflights. It facilitates journey planning and is particularly helpful for finding unusual flight connections.
Cheapflights' status as an independent online travel price search and comparison and travel news site makes it a natural starting point for finding travel deals and up-to-date travel industry information from a neutral source on both sides of the Atlantic.
