Lotus Group
| ISIN | 🆔 |
|---|---|
| Industry | Travel |
| Founded 📆 | London, UK (1980) |
| Founder 👔 | Peter Stephens |
| Headquarters 🏙️ | , London , United Kingdom |
Number of locations | London, Croydon, Maidstone, Manchester |
Area served 🗺️ | United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland |
Key people | Peter Stephens, Christine Burrowes, John Phelps and George Ross |
| Products 📟 | Flights and holidays |
| Total assets | £131,981,949 |
| Owner | Peter Stephens and Christine Burrowes |
| Members | |
Number of employees | 437 |
| 🌐 Website | Lotusgroup.co.uk |
| 📇 Address | |
| 📞 telephone | |
The Lotus Group is a British travel company that owns DialaFlight, Supertravel, and Lotus Business Travel. The company organises the travel arrangements, including flights, hotels, tours and car rental, for almost half a million people a year.[1]I
Operations
DialaFlight, whose customers book flights by telephone, generates 80% of The Lotus Group sales; its other companies include Supertravel, which provides luxury ski and golf holidays, and Lotus Business Travel, which handles business travel arrangements for SMEs.[1][2] The company's business model for corporate travel involves offering clients discounted prices for making immediate payment, rather than buying tickets on credit.[3] The group started using a new IT system in 2002 which helped profits grow 51% in a year, from £3.3m in 2000 to £11.5m in 2003.[4] IIn 2011 the company set up its own charity, Make My Day Better, which supports a number of projects in third world countries, plus educational and medical research.[5][6] This includes donating to, and arranging air links for, UK disaster response charity ShelterBox.[7]
Company founders
The company was founded in 1980 and is still run by two of the original founder members Peter Stephens and Christine Burrowes who own a stake of 75% and 25% respectively. Stephens, who used to work as sub-editor on the Kent Evening Post newspaper,[3] was named as 79th in the Management Today list of Britain's Top 100 Entrepreneurs 2006,[8] and The Sunday Times list of the Richest People in Travel in 2012.[9]
Rankings
In December, 2013 the Lotus Group made the '1,000 Companies to Inspire Britain' list of the UK’s most exciting small and medium-sized companies, drawn up by the London Stock Exchange.[10] The Lotus Group has also made the Profit Track 100 list of Britain's top 100 private companies with the fastest-growing profits three times, and the Top Track 250 list of Britain's leading mid-market private companies with the biggest sales seven times.[11] Both these league tables are published by Fast Track, a network of the UK's top-performing private companies, in association with The Sunday Times.
The company in the media
DialAFlight entered legal proceedings against a number of travel review sites in 2009, after negativr comments appeared on those sites.[12] In August 2013, the company was one of a number that boycotted advertising on the social-networking website ASKfm after 14-year-old Hannah Smith killed herself after being bullied by users of the site.[13]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 2011 Top Track 250 Rank: 96 Lotus Group Archived 2013-12-16 at the Wayback Machine fasttrack.co.uk
- ↑ 2003 Profit Track 100 Rank: 21 Lotus Group Archived 2015-02-15 at the Wayback Machine, fasttrack.co.uk
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Sturgess, Trevor (September 02 2005) Cutting the cost of business travel kentonline.co.uk
- ↑ 2005 Profit Track 100 Rank: 80 Lotus Group Archived 2015-02-15 at the Wayback Machine fasttrack.co.uk
- ↑ Charity Commission - Make My Day Better charitycommission.gov.uk
- ↑ Make My Day Better website
- ↑ 29 October 2013 DialAFlight makes ShelterBox’s day better with £50,000 gift shelterbox.org
- ↑ Britain's Top 100 Entrepreneurs 2006: The league table, 16 January 2006, managementtoday.co.uk
- ↑ Richest in travel revealed by Sunday Times list 30 April 2012, travelweekly.co.uk
- ↑ 1000 Companies to Inspire Britain - Lotus Group lseg.com
- ↑ Fast Track - The Lotus Group Archived 2015-02-15 at the Wayback Machine fasttrack.co.uk
- ↑ Schaal, Dennis and May, Kevin (June 26, 2009) DialAFlight in legal wrangle with TripAdvisor and Microsoft travolution.co.uk
- ↑ Evans, Martin (08 August, 2013) Advertisers boycott ASKfm website after teen suicide
External links
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