LIBRA Holidays UK marketing director Paul Riches is to join former Medhotels founder John Kent’s new accommodation only supplier youtravel.com, despite denials last week.
Both Kent and Riches last week poured cold water on speculation that the pair are to link up in the new venture that is expected to be officially launched in the next two weeks in time for World Travel Market.
However, Riches this week confirmed the rumours were true. He said: “This is a new start and exciting challenge, launching a new dynamic product in the UK market. It offers me the opportunity to develop and grow our business through new and existing trade channels.”
Youtravel.com will be a cross-Europe brand eventually available in up to 20 languages and will look to pioneer dynamic packaging in Europe where the market is less well developed that in the UK.
However, Kent sees opportunities for distributing through agents in the UK and he claimed the website, being developed by a major US technology firm, will offer agents better functionality than existing sites.
“I believe we will have a very different system than what’s already out there, it will be trade friendly. From my background I know what agents are missing and our system is being developed to make their life easier,” he said.