CollegeSkiTrips.com- Online Travel Agency/Tour Operator, Acquired in August 2007. Matt was the former founder and CEO of CollegeSkiTrips.com the leading “youth based” online ski and snowboard travel company in North America. The company is now owned by the largest ski tour operator in the country, Ski.com.
Highlights under Matt’s ownership included:
*The #1 buyer of hotel rooms at Breckenridge Ski Resort (Vail Resorts, Inc. a publicly traded company) in the 2006/2007 ski season.
*Wholesaler and Partner to STA Travel the 9th largest travel company in the world with 110 retail travel agencies. In 2007 STA Travel was our largest wholesaler and travel partner.
*Online Travel Technology and Software Developer of a proprietary online direct-connect for 660 retail travel agents to buy ski and snowboard packages for the agencies clients. We built a customized direct-connect for the STA Travel agents to access to book ski and snowboard trips. The customized direct-connect included the ability for the agent to search all our inventory, research the resorts, book the trip by making a deposit and paying by check or credit card. We built a customized fulfillment area where the individual STA Travel agents could login and print out clients receipt and itinerary including all the check in information, driving directions and more.
*Operated a sales distribution network of 15 sales reps that distributed 200,000 brochures a year to over 2,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. & Canada.
*CollegeSkiTrips.com was #1 most visited web site by college students @ Google & Yahoo search engines searching for college ski trips.
*Online Travel Software – Travel Booking Engine Software- We built a customized online travel software booking engine. The online booking engine and reservation system replicated the business process in which college students, youth ski & snowboarders buy, plan, and manage their vacations online.