As far as names go, you couldn’t get better than a name like lastminute.com. It’s one of the legends of the dot.com era, founded in 1998, and thus when it came onto the market, Bravofly Rumbo Group snapped it up and for a song.
The acquisition, finalised in March, saw the Swiss travel group take lastminute.com off Sabre Corporation’s hands for US$120 million or £76m. Sabre bought it in 2005 in a deal that valued it at £577m.
Fabio Cannavale speaking at Phocuswright Europe with PCW’s Lorraine Sileo. “There is incredible awareness of lastminute.com”
Speaking at Phocuswright Europe, Fabio Cannavale, chairman of Bravofly Rumbo Group, jested that he bought it because it was cheap but he also knew it was a very good brand.
“There is incredible awareness of lastminute.com,” he said.
When the deal was finalised, Cannavale said, “lastminute.com’s iconic and extremely popular brand combined with our capability to execute, is a cornerstone that will empower our teams to do their best, be spontaneous and achieve our ambitious target to be the unconventional leader of the European market with €5 billion GTV in 2020.”
But it is clear that the group, renamed lastminute.com on May 19, has ambitions beyond Europe, and is setting its sights as well on the Middle East and Asia.
Dubai, he said, is one of the fastest growing destinations for the group and with the group’s strength in flights, it will be easier to expand to the region.
“Lastminute.com will become the brand to build and we will do it in the context of enjoy every meal, extract value of every minute of your life,” he said.
Lastminute.com currently operates on four different platform and by year end, it will move to one platform. “We think that integrating the platforms using the same skills we used with past acquisitions, we can turn around the company.”
The plan is to grow the lastminute.com group’s non-flight business, something it was unable to do. “Flights was growing so fast for us it was difficult to build others. Flights is a good way to get customers. We will expand Top Secret Hotels in lastminute.com.”
Ultimately, his goal is to transform the group, which handled 10 million passengers and achieved gross travel value of 1,311 million Euros in 2014, from a transaction-based business to “smart travel provider”.
“My aim is to be in the pocket of the traveller so mobile will be big for us. Everything is changing. Mobile already accounts for 50% of searches. The way people travel is also changing. Mobile data is free in Europe. The booking process is continuous.”
With 100 million Euros in cash, Cannavale said the group was looking at M&A. “We managed to do three acquisitions last year,” he said, indicating the group was primed for more as it takes lastminute.com global.
