who is who for John (Yannis) Kent
John Kent is the Founder and CEO of youtravel.com and the founder of Aquis Hotels and Resorts. He has a strong track record in the tourism and travel industry, mostly as a serial entrepreneur within the online and dynamic packaging sector. He has managed to build value both as an executive and as an entrepreneur in six major companies, four of which were involved in Mergers & Acquisitions in a period shorter than 24 months from establishment. He founded MedHotels.com and TravelBargains.com revolutionising the package holiday model and introducing dynamic packaging for holidays in the UK market. Both companies were then acquired by Lastminute.com, after two very successful years of operations. John was then appointed as UK Managing Director of Lastminute.com with global responsibility for the procurement of hotels. Since leaving Lastminute.com he has generated a range of dynamic projects. He is currently the founder & CEO of Youtravel.com, the online resort accommodation provider – a company that he set up in 2006 and has achieved expected turnover of Euro 115 million for its second year (ended October 31 2008). Recently John invested in Aquis Hotels and Resorts www.aquisresorts.com which aims to build a portfolio of wholly owned hotels and hotels under management in the Mediterranean area. This venture has attracted substantial financial backing from Abu Dhabi.
John is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the University of Surrey, a Fellow of the UK Institute of Directors and Visiting Senior Fellow at the University of Bournemouth.
The John Kent Institute in Tourism
Improving the Hospitality Industry through education has always been a primary area of focus to me and undoubtedly research programs offer great input to this industry. In addition, I felt that there was a significant necessity for a comprehensive research programme that would in turn meet essential needs of hospitality industry. The idea of an institute to facilitate this overwhelming need for education and training was in my plans for a long time now. It was in my sincere intentions to offer core skills to promising talented people in a very high profile institution like Bournemouth University. Internationally renowned for its high standards and I highly respect the academic staff and the system they apply. Moreover, I selected this institute in the United Kindgdom because this country presented me with the opportunity to implement and develop many successful business ventures. I am delighted that this vision has become a reality.
Visit JKIT website www.bournemouth.ac.uk/johnkent
November 2009 John Kent was named as a BU Visiting Fellow.
School of Services Management University of Bournemouth, Visiting Fellow.
November 2009 "The John Kent Institute in Tourism"
The University of Bournemouth honors John Kent by naming the new Research Center for Tourism
"The John Kent Institute in Tourism".
John supports this internationally significant programme of tourism research within BU’s School of Services Management, 'namely The John Kent Institute in Tourism'. This new BU-based Institute will support a considerable number of PhD studentships in tourism research. This is a major initiative in tourism research that has been made possible by John's vision.
November 2008 John kent was accepted as a fellow of Institute of Directors.
FloD UK
www.iod.com
October 2008 John Kent nominated for "MEN OF THE YEAR 2008", Entrepreneurs
STATUS MAGAZINE AWARDS
June 2008 Aquis Hotels and Resorts
John has recently invested in Aquis Hotels and Resorts www.aquisresorts.com which aims to built a portfolio of wholly owned hotels and hotels under management in the mediterannean area. Aquis has already got its first two properties in Corfu, Greece. John is appointed as non executive director in the Board of the company.
May 2008 youtravel.com
Under John’s leadership youtravel.com is on target for €140m turnover till October 2008.
The business has also won the 2008 Travolution Award for the “ Best Consolidator website”.
November 2007 youtravel.com
Youtravel.com is ending its first trading year with turnover more than £70m from the accommodation only business. Youtravel.com has been on the fast track and managed not only to service 300,000 pax in 3,000 different hotels in the Mediterranean, but also to set up offices overseas in Italy, Sweden and France.
April 2007 and onwards School of Management University of Surrey, Visiting Senior Fellow.
John was honorary appointed Visiting Senior Fellow.
October 2006 Youtravel.com, CEO
John founds youtravel.com and in October 2006, Barclays Ventures invests in the business. On the day of investment the valuation of the company was over GBP15m. The business is expected to reach a turnover of €70m in its first year of operations.
December 2003-August 2005 Lastminute UK, Managing Director
John stays with lastMinute.com as a Global Hotel Director in LM group.
In 2004 John took also the position of the UK MD.
In 2004 Lastminute.com achieves a turnover of £2bn.
negotiations with Sabre Holdings, US.
John is a member in the negotiations team.
Finally, Sabre acquires lastminute.com for $1.1 bn
Aug. 2005 lastminute.com
After the sale to Sabre, John stays with Lastminute.com as a consultant
Aug. 2005
John lives between Athens and London and explores possibilities for his new ventures in the travel and tourism industry.
2001 - 2003 Travelbargains.com, CEO - Medhotels.com, CEO
John decides to be an entrepreneur and sets up Travelbargains.com and a year later (2002) Medhotels.com. John is a founder and first CEO of both companies.
With Medhotels.com, John has actually changed the business model upon which UK and most of the large European holiday makers had been operating till then. “Unpack the package” came to brake the classic holiday package to its components; flight, hotel and transfer. The whole industry has been moving since then towards this direction.
Note that in the first 4 years of operations MedHotels.com had EBITDA of £0.6m, £1.6m, £8m and £15m respectively for each year.
In Sept. 2003 private equities express interest to acquire the group.
In November 2003 Barclays Venture Capitalists invest £5.5 m in the group while on December 2003 The group is sold to lastminute.com at a transaction value of £22.6 m. Barclays makes a profit of £3m in just three weeks!
1999-2000 Virgin.com, Sales & Marketing Director
John was acquired by Branson himself to set up call centres for the travel sector of virgin.com. This sector generated about €100m in its first year.
1997-1999 Gemstone Travel Ltd., Commercial Director
Until John’s arrival GT was a three-branch UK call centre in the flights industry. John arrived to develop the package holiday department.
In the first year of operations, under John Kent, the company ranked 2nd in the travel industry and 16th in all industries in the UK Sunday Times, “Fastrack1-100” (most growing businesses in UK). In the second year of operations, it ranked 2nd in travel and 23rd in all businesses. It is rare that a single company features two years in a row in the “Fastrack1-100” index. John has acquired Gemstone at a later stage (via his tenure at Lastminute.com)
1995 - 1997 Greek Flight Club Limited, UK Managing Director
One of the first online bookable websites for student travelling in the UK.
John took advantage over the large Greek student community of over 60k in the UK and made a travel agency for them. GFC was one of the first online agencies in the UK to have online capability via Worldspan. GFC was sold to Manos Holidays in 1997.
John Kent holds an MSc in Industrial Psychology.
Yannis is a Greek name equivalent to John.
