LastMinuteTravel.com,
the global marketplace for Last Minute Travel offers, today unveiled plans to further reach the growing Last Minute Travel market by capitalizing on its valuable trademark - Last Minute Travel.
Consumers visiting
LastMinuteTravel.com will soon find a new home page showcase featuring the
most popular Last Minute Travel(R) destinations.  These destinations provide
direct links to Last Minute Travel offers that can be directly purchased from providers. In addition, LastMinuteTravel.com is developing licensing
agreements with a limited number of travel providers who wish to use the
trademark, Last Minute Travel. The first licensing agreement is with a leading travel insurance company that will be the exclusive provider of Last Minute Travel Insurance.
“Since we founded our company five years ago, the growth in spontaneous travel has escalated from a niche market to a full-blown market,” said David Miranda, CEO and founder, LastMinuteTravel.com. “The volumes of research and
the recent interest of other online travel sites to exploit this market
validates our original business premise that the Internet is the only
distribution channel that can marry today`s time impoverished consumer with
real time availability.  Because we recognized this fact early on, we are in
the unique position of having technology that was designed from the beginning to facilitate distribution in a time sensitive environment - providing both the consumer and the travel seller advantages in using our site,” added Miranda.
Since the launch of LastMinuteTravel.com there has been record growth
in the demand for Last Minute Travel offers. According to PhocusWright research published in June 2000, the spontaneous travel market has grown to include more than 25 million Americans. In addition, one-third of online
travel consumers plan trips within two weeks of departure and one-in-five online consumers plan trips within one week of departure according to the February 2001 research published by the Travel Industry of America.
This coupled with what Dr. Peter Yesawich, author of the YPB/Yankelovich Travel Monitor, coined `the age of time poverty and vigilante consumerism` is what is fueling the growth of online travel sales.
——-