Dr Andrew Phillipps
, CEO of Active Hotels Limited, one of the leading providers of online reservations to the European hotel industry, has won this year’s UK Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
Andrew fought off stiff competition from around the UK to win the coveted award last night at Ernst & Young’s National Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards ceremony, held at the Le Meridien, Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London. A major international awards programme, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards seeks to identify and recognise the achievements of outstanding entrepreneurs within successful growing dynamic businesses.

Andrew co-founded Active Hotels in 1999 with Adrian Critchlow, having identified an opportunity for an online sales and distribution channel in the highly fragmented hotel market. The company developed an innovative system that enables hotels to sell their rooms through a wide network of partner websites. Active Hotels receives a commission from the hotels for every reservation delivered through its system.

Active Hotels
has achieved tremendous growth since its inception in 1999 and is now processing in excess of €140 million of reservations per annum. The company is working with over 4,000 leading European hotels, selling over 1.5 million room nights per year through a network of over 1,500 web sites, including many of the market leaders in online travel.

The National judging panel believed that Active Hotels was a great example of a successful dotcom business operating in a very competitive market. Built on leading edge technology, the business benefits from being totally automated and scaleable, ensuring sustainable competitive advantage. They saw Andy as a hugely impressive character that presented his business articulately and with great thought.

Andy Glover, Entrepreneurial Growth Markets Partner in Ernst & Young said: “Andy’s ongoing drive and determination to constantly innovate and grow his business is truly impressive. He epitomises the quality of entrepreneurial talent we have within the UK. Both Andy’s achievements and the many success stories we have seen tonight go to show that UK companies are still weathering the uncertain economic climate, and emerging tougher and fitter.”

Commenting on the success of Active Hotels to date, Andrew says “Active Hotels continues to grow from strength to strength, due to a highly motivated team of talented individuals who have invested every effort in making Active Hotels what it is today. It is so encouraging to have our achievements recognised on a national scale. We have every incentive to keep building on our success to date to become a leading player on a global scale.

We expect to continue to expand our business in the international hotel industry and to develop our service to become the definitive solution for hotels wishing to capture successfully the market for online bookings.”
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