More small but not insignificant nuggets of information emerging slowly from Thomas Cook about its plans to build and run an online travel agency in Europe.
Officials say that the process of creating a team (which effectively started at least in the summer of 2009 when ex-Expedia Europe president Simon Breakwell acted as a consultant for the company), establishing product lines, probably acquiring another business, actually launching the business and challenging the likes of Expedia will complete by the summer of 2012.
This timescale is considerably shorter than reports elsewhere which suggested a five-year programme for the project.
Thomas Cook has also confirmed this week that the OTA will only be focused on the European market, ending suggestions at this stage that it would reach out into other markets where it already has a presence, primarily Canada through its tour operating division.
To target other key OTA markets, such as the US, would require enormous marketing investment to break the stranglehold of Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz and Priceline, effectively ruling out any wider ambitions Thomas Cook may have.
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