Online travel agency Ebookers is to close its flagship store in Dublin later this month. The closure of the shop means t

Online travel agency Ebookers is to close its flagship store in Dublin later this month. The closure of the shop means that Ebookers will become an exclusively online travel agent, supported by a call centre, according to a media report.

Published: 22 May 2006

Online travel agency Ebookers is to close its flagship store in Dublin later this month. The closure of the shop means that Ebookers will become an exclusively online travel agent, supported by a call centre, according to a media report.

According to sbpost.ie, the move follows a strategic review of the Irish business, which was bought in March last year by Cendant Corporation.

There will be no compulsory redundancies - staff will be offered opportunities to work elsewhere in the company, Ciaran Lally, the group’s managing director in Ireland and Britain reportedly said.

“There has been a dramatic shift to online booking, while our offline business has not grown since 2000. Our shop accounted for over 60 per cent of our business 15 months ago,” Lally said. “Today, it accounts for only 15 percent. Our business has migrated online so we took the decision to close the shop.”

The same report added Ebookers is expected to grow its sales, which amounted to more than €28 million last year, by about 30 percent this year. Lally reportedly said that the company was by far the largest internet operator in the country, ahead of rivals such as lastminute.com and gohop.com.

“Lally said the overall travel market had grown by almost 25 percent year on year. Flight and hotel bookings at Ebookers had doubled and trebled respectively in the period. He predicted that other Irish businesses would follow suit and make the move to establish an exclusively online operation,” as per the report.

“The big determinant is broadband. It has held back the Irish marketplace, but as soon as that is fixed, you will see more businesses close down their high street presence,” Lally reportedly said.

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