p10-11 News Apr24 22/4/09 18:40 Page 11
ttglive.com
freedom direct news
Freedom Direct chief executive Martin Jones: reports that he had to sell his house to repay loan denied
Freedom facts: brands, results and bank loans
■ Freedom Direct traded under the brands
Freedomdirect.co.uk,
Freedom-direct.co.uk,
Snowdeals.co.uk and
Holidaysyoulike.co.uk.
■ It sold packages mainly to the Mediterranean, Canary Islands and Turkey.
■ Freedom sold its own packages under its Atol but also acted as an agent
selling flights, accommodation and packages on behalf of third parties. These
holidays were not covered by Freedom’s Atol but could be covered by Abta or
may be honoured by the suppliers.
■ Freedom had a £48 million turnover and the latest accounts reported a
pre-tax profit of £522,952 for the year ending September 30, 2007.
■ The accounts showed a new long-term bank loan of £450,000 was taken out
in 2007, taking the total the company owned in bank loans to £727,591.
■ Reports that chief executive Martin Jones was forced to put his house up for
sale because of the collapse have been denied.
GOOGLE.
Pay-per-click costs increase
THE RISING cost of maintaining a failed to drive volumes, although they
prominent ranking on Google is were profitable.
forcing agents to constantly monitor And he said he had also been
return on marketing spend and turn to surprised how productive Teletext
traditional packages. Holidays had been through its digital
Monster Holidays founder David television platform; it accounts for a
Hawke said the pay-per-click market third of his business.
had become “very, very competitive” “The cost of acquiring paid traffic
since January and firms had to make through Google has increased. There
sure they were not wasting cash. are more lookers and less bookers,”
About half of what Monster sells are Hawke said.
traditional packages and Hawke said “We are not getting as good conver-
these were generally more profitable sions as last summer and running
than dynamically packaged holidays. pay-per-click campaigns is relatively
He said the retailer had been more expensive.
surprised to find price comparison “We are focusing on our natural
sites such as Travelsupermarket had search proposition.”
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