Cheapflights Ltd., the leading UK and North American internet media travel company, which pioneered online flight price search and comparison in 1996 is pleased to announce the appointment of Paul Hecht as Group Product Director with immediate effect.
Paul will be based in London and will report to Cheapflights' Group Managing Director, Chris Cuddy. Paul will be responsible for co-ordinating product development globally including the comprehensive website redesign planned for this year which will facilitate further international launches.
Paul brings to Cheapflights more than 15 years of experience in product development. Most recently, he served in online travel as Senior Product Director at Expedia where he led product design. As employee #2 at Expedia.ca, Paul developed the product roadmap and designed the website that led the business from a startup to annual revenues of over $500M. At Expedia.co.uk, he helped build the site in to the UK’s “best online travel agent” as recognized by e-tid. Paul also supported the launch of Expedia Corporate Travel. Previously, at ICE Digital, Paul led teams on complex web design engagements for a wide range of clients including First Choice Travel, Tennis Canada, and ONEX, one of Canada’s largest corporations. At Digital Fusion Media, Paul produced early versions of the successful interactive children’s CD-ROM titles “Mazlo’s Adventures.”
Paul graduated in 1992 from Concordia University - Montreal with a BA in Communications Studies/Philosophy. He retains an interest in Ice Hockey where since 1999 he has been an "Off-Ice Official" of the Canadian National Hockey League. Paul is an accomplished traveller comfortable in destinations that offer snowboarding or scuba diving.
Commenting, Group Managing Director Chris Cuddy said: "I am delighted to welcome Paul to lead Product Development at Cheapflights. He has a deep background in global online travel and will serve as our leading consumer champion. Paul brings a passion for designing products and joins our executive team that averages over 12 years experience in each of their respective fields of travel, technology, and media. Paul’s arrival coincides with our significant investment to expand our international growth. "
Paul Hecht added: "Cheapflights' serves both the millions of online users searching for flight deals and travel information as well as the travel industry advertising their flights deals on Cheapflights' sites. I look forward to keeping Cheapflights at the forefront of service to our users and advertisers on our existing UK and North American sites as well on our other planned international sites."
Notes to Editors
CheapflightsLtd.: (www.cheapflights.co.uk) was launched in 1996 and pioneered the concept of online flight price search and comparison. It was the first UK dotcom to introduce pay-per-click in 2000 which helped to transform online advertising. Cheapflights publishes flight deals from airlines, budget airlines, online travel agents and the long tail of other specialist flight deal providers. Cheapflights therefore provides consumers with rapid, easy-to-use comparisons of hundreds of flight deals from the broadest online selection of travel operators. The site is valued by travel industry advertisers as a neutral, high-traffic source of quality high-conversion consumer leads. It launched its US site www.cheapflights.com in May 2003 which has grown rapidly and which now provides half of Cheapflights' six million monthly unique users. Its Canadian site www.cheapflights.ca soft launched in April 2007 is already enjoying traffic of more than 100,000 monthly unique users. 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 on both sides of the Atlantic.
