Hoberman defends results and aims for trade support –TTA conference report
Lastminute.com chief executive Brent Hoberman made a passionate defence of the company’s performance and urged agents to back its new dynamic packaging product for the trade, holidayandmore.com.
The dot.com boss appeared at his second trade conference in under a month when he took part in an interview on stage at the Travel Trust Association conference following his attendance at the ABTA Convention in Orlando.
Criticism of lastminute.com’s recent £77 million pre-tax loss was unjust, said Mr Hoberman, as £66 million of that was goodwill amortisation on purchases and lastminute.com was taking significant costs out of the business.
He said he was unworried by criticism from city journalists, many of whom have recently advised their readers to sell the company’s shares.
“These are the same people who said sell when the share price was 20p,” he said.
Mr Hoberman said holidaymore gave retailers the opportunity to be lifestyle agents by packaging car hire with hotels, attractions and theatre breaks. He promised not to take holidaymakers’ contact details and approach them directly after they had booked with an agent.
“That would be a terrible way to conduct business and we would rightly be attacked for that.”
Mr Hoberman denied lastminute.com had performed a U-turn by going through the trade when it had been purely direct-sell for years and said bookings on its main site were strong.
“We have half a million people visiting our website a day,” he said. “But the trade is important and dynamic packaging is growing.”
His support of Holiday Autos prompted an angry response from an agent, Ray Smith of Twickenham-based World of Transport Travel, who claimed his clients had experienced problems using the car hire firm.
Earlier in the conference, agents had complained about administrative and systems errors with Holiday Autos and another lastminute.com subsidiary, Med Hotels.
But Mr Hoberman said these needed to be kept in context and claimed satisfaction levels were high.
Agents booking dynamic packages with holidayandmore have financial protection for their clients but there is currently no cover for retailers just booking with Med Hotels.
“We are looking at this and hope to have bonding in place by the beginning of the summer season, in April,” he said.
Phil Davies
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