Its almost like a weekly requirement over at the Flight Centre Travel Group (FLT), that the company expand its network by either adapting, buying or launching a new business.
Today, the company announced the launch of a completely new business designed to help FLT find and assist selected start-up travel companies take off fast.
The new business comes less than a month after FLT announced a new arrangement with Live Nation, changed the name of My Adventure Store, purchased 49 percent of Ignite Travel Group and tweaked its Aunt Betty product.
Called ‘Little Argas’, it launched as one of FLT’s six key areas of focus for the future and has been created to help the company identify, work with and invest in innovative new travel and travel-related start-ups.
Operating under the guidance of Senior FLT Executive, Rob Flint, Little Argas will work with industry leading partners like Fishburners, Airtree and Little Tokyo Two to nurture new business ideas and fast track travel start-ups.
Flint said the company is constantly investing in its future through a combination of business partnerships, sponsorships, investments and mentoring.
“We are really excited about the prospect of tapping into the expertise that companies like Fishburners, Airtree and Little Tokyo Two provide and ultimately working with business founders to create new opportunities and nurture new ideas in areas that meet our investment criteria.”
Rob Flint, FLT Senior Executive
Although Little Argas sounds like a fictional underground government organisation responsible for uniting a band of villains and meta-humans in the hopes that they’d fight on the ‘good side’ in exchange for reduced prison sentences (ARGUS)…
… it actually comes from the name of an English double-decker bus that helped pave the way for FLT’s creation.
A fitting title considering the bus helped launch FLT’s Top Deck, which went on to become an “innovator in that era and delivered exciting new options to travellers”, according to FLT Managing Director, Graham Turner.
“We’ve been quite entrepreneurial since we launched discount airfares to the market 30 years ago and we see the travel business accelerator as an excellent way to incorporate areas of our DNA into a small number of carefully selected start-ups and create the next wave of success stories,” he said.
“We are also keen to identify and work with start-ups that can enhance our business, perhaps through new products or new tools, and help our company achieve its longer term strategic objectives.”