[June 22] European travel agent
BookThat.com announced
Thursday that it has expanded its site to offer over
200,000 peak season holidays in villas, apartments
and quality mobile homes.
Having started in February this year with holidays
in France, BookThat.com has grown rapidly and has
expanded to the U.K and Ireland, Spain, Italy and
Portugal.
Chief Executive Stuart Keeler said BookThat’s focus
has always been on wide choice and high availability.
He said he was determined to steer away from the
sector of the market that offers limited availability
bargain holidays.
“The volume of holidays on our site and the up-to-date
booking systems we operate means customers can
avoid the frustration that comes with being told that
the holiday they’ve spent ages finding on the Web is
already booked up for the season. With BookThat, if
you find a holiday on the site, it will be available
to book,” said Keeler.
BookThat.com’s announcement comes at the same time
that analysts are saying that Europe’s largest
Internet travel company Ebookers is running short
of cash. Bloomberg reports that Ebookers is spending
cash at the rate of $5 million per month, and will
run out by the end of the year unless it finds additional
investment.
The expansion of BookThat.com highlights the intense
competition in the European travel and holidays market,
with too many sites chasing too few customers. Late
deals specialist lastminute.com
is still suffering from a depressed share price,
trading at well under half its peak value this year.
With its own expansion, BookThat.com now claims to have
the most comprehensive holiday booking service for European
cottages and villas on the Web.