Travelzoo bought and has now relaunched Fly.com - looks familiar

Email/Deals marketing firm Travelzoo (TZOO) bought the domain name Fly.com for US$1.76mm a week or so ago (more over at Travolution). Today I saw a story announcing that Fly.com has been relaunched as a meta-search beta. New model for them. I wonder where they got their inspiration. Here is a screenshot of the new Fly.com website. Free 1 year subscription to the BOOT for anyone who can tell me which site the Fly.com website looks the most like. Any guesses? There is a hint below.
Fly.com



Hint



Update - just saw a post from Tom Botts of Hudson Crossing where he reviews some features from Fly.com

TRAVELtech: Travelzoo announce 1 million subscribers in Asia Pacific, 100,000 in Australia

Brad Gurrie - Managing Director for Travelzoo Australia announced today at TRAVELtech that Travelzoo in Asia Pacific have hit the 1 million subscriber mark with 100,000 of those in Australia. Offices now in Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong.

Travelzoo Australia is bringing in some help from the mothership

I updated my Travelzoo to launch in Australia post today. I have heard a very reliable rumour that in January at least one maybe more US based Travelzoo staff will be seconded to Sydney for an extended time to help local boss Brad Gurrie with the set up.

Meanwhile despite the market's poor reaction to Travelzoo's recent results (in part because of costs associated with new market launches), the Motely Fool site has put Travelzoo on its list of "4 Internet Stocks to Buy in 2008".

Travelzoo - results in, offices opening but stock down

They have a new AU GM in Brad Gurrie and Asian offices opening all over the place but the market was not happy with Travelzoo's recent results. Motley Fool is carrying the story that while Q3 revenue is up 13% to $19.9mm they were not up enough to meet market expectations. Operating profits were down 39% however - probably driven by the costs of expansion and opening new offices. These costs are hitting straight at the bottom line. Stock itself is at around seventeen and a half bucks - down by more than a half from high in May and hundred in Jan 05 - but well up from opening of around $3.

Travelzoo AU and NZ launch imminent with appoint of new GM - Brad Gurrie

First there was an advertisement in the newspaper giving a hint of Travelzoo's arrival in the the Australian/New Zealand market. Now we have word that current Lastminute.com.au GM Hotels Brad Gurrie has been appointed as Travelzoo's Australian and New Zealand General Manager- starting next month.

The AU site is in beta already - as you can see from this shot - so Brad starts with something to work on.

For those of you that don't know Travelzoo are a NASDAQ listed company with a market cap of about US$320 based on revenues of $75mm. Their difference is that they are neither a retailer or a pure review/content/network site. They are a deal hunter. They use screened advertiser driven content to provide consumers with deals and specials.

If the rumours prove true, Brad may find himself working for Priceline. Would be the first Priceline employee in Australia since they shut down the Myprice joint venture with Telstra during the boom.

Congratulations to Brad on the new job. Not sure yet what this will mean for Lastminute staff retention post the Wotif acquisition.

UPDATE - Hotelmarket.com are reporting that the Sydney office will open on Nov 15 to be followed by a Taipei office on December 1

UPDATE 2 - Reliable rumours that in January at least one maybe more US based Travelzoo staff will be seconded to Sydney for an extended time to help Brad with the set up.

401 not out

Time for my "not out series" - a regular summary of the last 100 posts that I first started with 101 not out and continued with 201 and 301.

Without a doubt this recent period of posts on the BOOT have been dominated by consolidation and deals:

• Lonely Planet admitted that it could not meet the challenges of the Internet on its own and sold out a majority stake to the enterprise division of the BBC;
• Opodo shed Karavel with the story being broken by an blogger from the inside;
• TUI made a bad decision in buying asiarooms and once again search traffic predicted a deal;
• the battle for Travel.com.au (who now own the lastminute.com brand outright in AU/NZ) is not yet over with Webjet and Wotif at each others throats and AOT sitting not so quietly on the sidelines;
  
• Rakuten made some healthy profits and set itself for further expansion by selling out of Ctrip;
• the Flight Centre privatisation fell in a heap in an embarrassing way for the Flighties board;
  
• rumours flew that Priceline want Travelzoo and the comments section filled up with a debate on the merits of this idea; and
  
• we have the as yet to be confirmed rumour that TravelCLICK are about to be bought.
  

In other general news

• every media outlet there is ran a story about how bad the US air industry is prompting me to run my own series of the Airline Industry brought to you by BusinessWeek, the Legal Fraternity, Wharton, NPR, the Economist and Pizza Hut. Conclusions were that the US air traveller is stuffed and no-one is taking responsibility. In fact Marion Blakely quit as head of the Federal Aviation Authority to join the peak airline lobby group the Aerospace Industries Association;
• the T-List is soon to be a book. The BOOT submitted three stories:
• UGC vs Editorial. What's better? What's the balance? What's more 2.0?;
• Helping Airlines Stay on top; and
• the fourth phase of online travel - "too much information"; and
• it looks like Dead Herring for Red Herring.
  

and in quirky news

• one muppet shouted at two others;
  
• a lion, a crocodile and a buffalo tried to sort out their differences the old fashioned way; and
• the BOOT saved the world by defusing a jar of olives.

I hope you're enjoying reading because I am enjoying writing.

Another deal! Priceline and Travelzoo (updated)

I cannot type fast enough to keep up with the deals that are flying around. The latest to hit the BOOT radar is the piece on Hotelmarketing.com speculating that Priceline is going to announce an acquisition bid for content/travel advertising firm Travelzoo. Travelzoo is up 22% on the news. And I thought this was going to be a slow news week.

UPDATE - on the Q3 2007 PCLN earnings call a few subtle questions were asked of the Priceline management about any interest in owning Travelzoo. The questions were subtle and the answers therefore equivocal but it seemed that there is not (public) interest from Priceline in buying Travelzoo. A reader and I agree that this constitutes a "no" for now.

Who's coming to Australia next?

Often it is the job ads the give you the best guidance as to who is launching where when. There was an advertisement in this weekend's paper for this role

General Manager- Global Internet Media Company - Australia Launch!

A unique opportunity exists to launch a new venture for one of the world’s leading online media companies. This NASDAQ listed company, headquartered in New York, is experiencing significant growth and is well positioned for expansion into the Australian market.

The General Manager, Australia will be responsible for launching the business, winning and maintaining key accounts as well as the online consumer. This appointment requires an entrepreneurial leader with a passion for new media and the travel sector....[MORE]

I have a very strong suspicion as to who this is but have a little bit of inside knowledge that I promised not to reveal. What do you think, what's your guess? Either way - interesting to see the Australian market having reached a new stage where a media/advertising supported travel business model is attractive enough to support expansion plans.

UPDATE - the cat is out of the zoo, the role was for Travelzoo and ex-Lastminute.com.au Hotels GM Brad Gurrie got the job