Boutique Holidays Limited

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Challenge

Founder of Brand Essence, Lindsay Howard has an entrepreneurial flair which has led to her involvement in various 'start-ups'.

Sri Lanka called peace on a decade long civil war in 2005 resulting in huge interest in this formerly 'most popular honeymoon destination'

As an ex -colony, Sri Lanka also enjoys a disproportionately high level of award winning Boutique hotels. As large tour operators were still very slow to move to online marketing in 2008 Lindsay recognised an opportunity to develop an online bespoke travel service specialising in Sri Lanka.



Approach
Over 1-2 years, Lindsay and her team left no stone un turned in the island, negotiated first class ground handlers, reviewed every hotel and villa personally and launched a specialist website to challenge the Package operators.

As an e-commerce and advisory operation we quickly mastered best practice SEO and Adwords techniques. Year 3 saw the growth of the business to 3 new countries and the acquisition of 30 further domains.

Brand, customer service and guest experience were at the heart of the e-commerce business, a distinct advantage over price led trading form competitors.



Achievement​​​

• Turnover of £1.4 mill in 1.5 years

• Times website of the year 2008

• Sunday Times online top 100 websites in 2008/ 2009/2010

• Sri Lanka's No 1 inbound Operator for FIT travel in 2008/9