Media

Travelzest plc, the British online travel group offering specialist travel programmes, is pleased to announce its interim results for the six months ended 30 April 2007.

Financial Highlights

• Group total transaction value increased by 849% to £86.3 million (2006: £9.1 million)
• Group turnover increased by 267% to £13.6 million (2006: £3.7 million)
• Profit before goodwill amortisation, the charge for share based payments, interest and tax was £1.7 million (2006 Restated*: £1.3 million loss)
• Profit before tax of £0.4 million (2006 Restated*: £1.4 million loss)
• Normalised diluted earnings per share (adding back goodwill amortisation and the charge for share based payments) 3.1p (2006: 9.67p loss per share)

Operational Highlights

• Excellent results from the Group's Canadian online retail business, itravel2000.com
• Strong performance from UK winter biased specialist tour operator businesses
• Successful launch of Flight.co.uk
• Continuing investment in Holiday.co.uk
• Acquisition of Tapestry Travel Limited in December 2006 and relaunched as The Tapestry Collection, specialising in programmes to Turkey
• Wow House Limited acquired in December 2006, offering an exclusive portfolio of large prestigious houses to rent for short breaks and special occasions in the UK

* Restated to reflect FRS20 (share based payment)

Commenting on the results, Chris Mottershead, Travelzest's Chief Executive, said:

"When the Travelzest concept was launched we set out to create a travel company which generated profits throughout the year. I am very pleased to report that we have managed to achieve a profit in the first six months in only our second year. This result is particularly pleasing as it represents an underlying year on year first six month profit improvement of £3 million.

"Our winter biased businesses delivered excellent performances with itravel2000.com increasing sales by 17% over the same period in the previous year, and Best of Morocco by 30% year on year. This demonstrates our ability to make significant improvements to the businesses we acquire. We have also launched Flight.co.uk and Wow House, and relaunched The Tapestry Collection, all of which have made a good start. In addition we continue to develop Holiday.co.uk."

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