Description
lastminute.com, Europe's leading independent online travel and leisure group, operates directly in fourteen European countries and participates in three international joint ventures, providing travel and leisure inspirations and solutions to customers. At 31 March 2005 lastminute.com had over 9.8 million subscribers to its weekly newsletter. The business is based on the idea of matching supply and demand. lastminute.com offers consumers opportunities to acquire airline tickets, hotel rooms, holidays (both self packaged and third party packages), car hire, entertainment tickets, restaurant reservations and food delivery, specialty services, gifts and auctions.
Having completed 14 acquisitions in the past three years, lastminute.com now owns and operates online brands including holidayautos.com, travelprice.com, degriftour.com, travelselect.com, travel4less.co.uk, eXhilaration.co.uk, medhotels.com, first-option.co.uk, gemstonetravel.com, onlinetravel.com and lastminute.de.
lastminute.com seeks to differentiate itself by packaging and delivering products and services, such as restaurant reservations, entertainment tickets and gifts, in convenient, novel and distinctive ways. The company has been successful in developing a distinctive and widely recognized brand, which is intended to communicate spontaneity and a sense of adventure to a youthful target demographic.
lastminute.com was founded by Brent Hoberman and Martha Lane Fox in 1998. Brent Hoberman remains as CEO of the company which currently employs approximately 2,000 people throughout Europe.