Trade-only bed bank Youtravel.com has promoted Matthew Carpenter to head up its UK office as it prepares to expand its product range to offer properties across the globe.
Carpenter was previously head of XML and account management and his promotion to head of distribution comes along with a number of other appointments to the firm’s London team.
Maura Ryan has joined as Youtravel.com’s new operations manager, and Leila Costigan will head up a newly created marketing team in the capital.
Youtravel.com said it now offers its trade partners over 22,000 room on an exclusive basis in the Canaries, Spanish costas, Balearic Islands, Algarve, Greece, Morocco, Turkey, Egypt and Italy.
German parent FTI Group has recently acquired six hotels for its Labranda Hotels chain.
These are the Labranda Bluebay Resort on Rhodes, Labranda Miraluna Village and the Labranda Kiotari Bay on Rhodes, the Labranda Mares Marmaris and the Labranda Bodrum Princess and Spa in Turkey and the first ever Labranda World category hotel, the Labranda Stella Canaris on the Island of Fuerteventura offering 2,000 rooms and due to open in 2017.
Youtravel.com said it has just finished its financial year recording its best ever financial results “despite one of the worst market conditions in recent years”.
Ranj Kundi, chief commercial officer, said the supplier has seen growth in all destinations, especially Dubai, Cyprus and Morocco.
He said: “Next year will see an even greater investment into our already tremendous exclusive content offering, raising this to levels that cannot be matched elsewhere.
“With technological improvements, investment in staff and building upon an already close relationship with our partners.
“We aim to grow the mutual business of each and every one of our partners by offering them a product where price and availability cannot be beaten and a service from making the booking all the way to the clients checking out of their hotels that is unrivalled. 2017 will also see the launch of our Australia, Asian and South American destinations”
FTI is poised to launch of Meeting Point Global in December. This will enable trade partners to access to hotel content from all over the world, open access to all of the major hotel chains and provide greater last minute availability.
Youtravel.com will also be making improvements to its API technology, that enables product to be supplied via data connections, and is due to unveil a new website and rebranding by the end of this year.
It plans to operate a series of roadshows next year to build product awareness and build agent relations. Details of which will be announced in due course.