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Very happy returns for Lastminute.com

September 15, 2008 | Online Travel

Lastminute.com is the UK's most famous survivor of the dotcom era. The travel and leisure website is an icon of a time when the siren call of the internet saw investors write blank cheques to hordes of twentysomething cyber-entrepreneurs, writes The Observer.

Webvan, Boo, Pets.com. Remember them? Long-dead dotcom companies that illustrate the rags-to-riches - and back to rags - tales of the first cyber-boom.

But unlike hundreds of other first-wave internet companies, Lastminute.com is still here, and this year marks a decade in business. The anniversary comes at a time when the travel sector is braced for enforced consolidation after a series of high-profile airline and tour operator failures, including XL Leisure, Britain’s third largest package tour operator. So how has Lastminute made it in this brutally competitive sector?

‘The difference between Lastminute.com and the dotcom firms that didn’t make it is that it was actually a good idea and a sustainable business,’ says Lastminute.com’s chief executive, Ian McCaig. ‘At the time, it was possible to raise money for the unlikeliest projects but when I look back at the original business plan, it is not fluff.’

Get the full story at The Observer

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