Graham Donoghue, chief executive of Sykes Cottages.
The exclusive MailOnline deal involves the development and launch of a new partner e-commerce site, Mail Cottages.
Sykes Cottages, the UK’s fastest-growing cottage holiday company, has announced two new partnerships with tours provider Viator and the MailOnline.
The agreement with TripAdvisor-owned Viator will see Sykes offer sightseeing tours and day trips to customers via a newly-launched section of its website, and represents one of the first steps in Sykes providing experience-led UK breaks.
The exclusive MailOnline deal involves the development and launch of a new partner e-commerce site, Mail Cottages. Over 8,000 of Sykes’ properties are now available to book via Mail Cottages, with the staycation specialist looking to capitalise on web traffic to the UK’s most-read online newspaper.
Graham Donoghue, chief executive of Sykes Cottages, said: “We’re constantly looking for new ways to inspire more people to holiday with us, and offering Viator’s sightseeing tours and day trips is a great way to do this. It also fits with our shifting focus to holidays as a whole – promoting the sights and experiences available outside of our properties.
“The launch of the Mail Cottages platform opens us up to a huge online audience across the UK, and will allow us to raise our profile and significantly boost bookings in the run-up to the summer holiday season.
“May is usually our second-biggest booking period after January, and we’re expecting record sales this year thanks to a weak pound after the Brexit vote, the long-term trend towards taking more holidays and the UK’s increasing attractiveness to overseas tourists. So far in 2017, we’ve already seen a 21% year-on-year increase in bookings from domestic customers and a 32% increase in bookings from overseas visitors.”
“These two deals come at an exciting time in the business’ growth and development, and show our commitment to bringing our owners’ properties to the widest audience possible.”
Both commercial agreements coincide with Sykes securing its millionth customer booking. The Chester-based business was also recently named as one of the region’s Top 15 Fastest-Growing Larger Technology Companies at the Northern Tech Awards.
Angelos is the news editor for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). His role includes to monitor the hundrends of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skim the most important according to our strategy.
He currently studies Communication, Media & Culture in Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens.
