Cheapflights Ltd., the leading UK and North American internet media travel company which pioneered online flight price comparison in 1996 is pleased to announce it has won the 3i Growth Strategy of the Year Award at the S.E. Region National Business Awards sponsored by Orange. Held at London's Royal Lancaster Hotel on 12 July, the National Business Awards ceremony celebrates the achievements of businesses from the London and S.E Region in a number of categories.
The 3i award goes to the company that can best demonstrate an organic growth strategy (rather than M & A activity) that has achieved outstanding levels of sales, profit and market share improvement. Cheapflights will now go forward to the national award level against the winners of the category from other regions.
Commenting, David Soskin, CEO of Cheapflights said: "We are naturally delighted to be winners again of this category which we won in 2004. We were also finalists in the Business Innovation of the Year Award category. The awards are open to companies from all business sectors in the South-East, one of the most competitive, dynamic and innovative business regions in Europe. Given the diversity of businesses competing, to be a finalist is a significant achievement in itself. To compete and win against the cream of the region's businesses is an honour of which the Cheapflights' team can be truly proud."
Notes to Editors
Cheapflights Ltd.www.cheapflights.co.uk: 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.
3i
3i is a world leader in private equity and venture capital. Its Growth Capital team provides financial and strategic support to established businesses, working in partnership to create outstanding value growth.
Orange ™
Orange is one of the world's largest communications companies and provides innovative mobile, broadband and multiplay products and services to 86.5 million customers. Orange Business Services is present in 166 countries with network reach in 220. It serves 8 million businesses with mobile solutions; 3750 multinationals with IP networks and services and provides both broadband internet and fixed line communications to UK businesses.
