Lastminute.com is rather busy this week

Chief executive Ian McCaig and co have been quiet of late, apart from an appearance at the Travolution Summit in April.

But a number of significant developments across the Lastminute.com group have been officially announced this week.

First of all the flagship consumer product, Lastminute.com, has a new "intutive booking engine", called Judith, named after the omnipresent holiday girl of the 1970s and 1980s, Judith Chalmers.

[Read the Travolution article, Web Adds Human Touch, about OTAs and their quest to personalise the online experience, from our June edition]

But more interestingly was McCaig's announcement yesterday regarding a fundamental restructuring of the group.

Out goes the existing - rather haphazard - collection of various divisions, replaced with a US-style split into two businesses covering B2B (which will have two branches) and B2C.

Each division will be run by a vice president:

• Vic Darvey: VP for distribution and business development (Private Labels and OTC).
• Alfonso Castellano: SVP group and Travelocity Europe for consumers brands
• Brian Murphy: VP for HolidayAndMore (HolidayAutos, MedHotels)

McCaig said in a brief conversation with us yesterday that the new structure will mean the company is more "transparent" to customers (clients).

Fair enough. But the structure is also looking far more like that of its parent company and other US-run businesses.

Travelport has very seperate divisions for its B2B (Galileo GDS) and B2C businesses (Orbitz, Ebookers).

And what is Travelport doing with them? Ridiculous speculation, of course, but worth thinking about...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

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