Lastminute.com Group
Lastminute.com Group is a Swiss-based online travel group operating digital booking, travel metasearch, media, and travel-commerce brands across international markets.
Last updated August 31, 2026
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Overview
Lastminute.com Group is an international online travel business whose portfolio includes travel-booking and metasearch brands such as lastminute.com, Volagratis, Rumbo, Bravofly, Jetcost, Hotelscan, weg.de, and Crocierissime.it. The group is headquartered in Chiasso, Switzerland, and traces its origins to the creation of Volagratis in Italy in 2004 by Fabio Cannavale and Marco Corradino. The business was formally organized as a group in 2006, when it began expanding beyond Italy through localized websites in Spain, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The group’s development has been driven largely by the assembly of complementary online-travel assets. Volagratis began as a low-cost-flight search engine and established the group’s metasearch foundation. The acquisition of Rumbo in 2012 added a Spanish online travel agency with a broader range of travel products, including accommodation, flights, city breaks, package holidays, and cruises. Jetcost, acquired in 2013, strengthened the group’s international airfare-metasearch capabilities. In 2015, the company purchased lastminute.com from Sabre Holdings, the owner of Travelocity, for £76 million. The transaction added an established European travel and leisure brand and led to the company’s renaming from Bravofly Rumbo Group to lastminute.com group in May of that year. The portfolio subsequently expanded beyond flight and holiday search. Travel People, introduced in 2016, was an advertising platform intended to connect travel audiences with commercial partners. The group also acquired WAYN, a social travel network, in 2016, and Hotelscan, a lodging-metasearch service, in 2017. Later in 2017 it acquired Comvel GmbH, the German operator of weg.de, broadening its presence in the German package-holiday market. In 2019, the group created Forward, a media company reflecting an interest in travel-related publishing, audience development, and advertising activities alongside booking services. The group’s operating model combines direct online travel retail with metasearch and traffic-generation businesses. Its full-service booking brands offer combinations of flights, hotels, city breaks, package holidays, cruises, and car rentals, while metasearch properties compare travel or accommodation offers from multiple providers. The brands operate websites and mobile applications in 17 languages and serve customers in approximately 40 countries. The reference material describes the group as reaching about 43 million monthly unique users, although no date is specified for that figure. Lastminute.com Group became publicly listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange in Zurich in April 2014. Its brand architecture has continued to reflect the company’s acquisition-led history: individual properties retain their own names and market positioning while operating within a shared international travel group. The available reference material does not identify a current chief executive, current ownership structure, official website, exchange ticker, or detailed present-day financial profile. Accordingly, those fields remain unspecified here.
History
Lastminute.com Group developed from Volagratis, a low-cost-flight search engine launched in Italy in 2004 by Fabio Cannavale and Marco Corradino. The original concept focused on helping consumers locate low-cost airfares online. In 2006, the founders organized the business as a group, moved its headquarters to Chiasso, Switzerland, and began international expansion through localized sites serving Spain, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The company’s expansion combined organic localization with acquisitions of travel-commerce and comparison businesses. In November 2012, it acquired Rumbo, a Spanish online travel agency founded in 2000. Rumbo brought a broader retail proposition covering flights, hotels, city breaks, package holidays, and cruises, as well as operations extending beyond Spain. In December 2013, the group acquired Jetcost, a French metasearch engine focused on comparing airfares. This strengthened the group’s ability to operate both as a booking intermediary and as a traffic-generating comparison platform. On 15 April 2014, the company became publicly listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange in Zurich. Its most consequential acquisition followed in March 2015, when it purchased lastminute.com from Sabre Holdings, the parent company of Travelocity, for £76 million. The acquisition added a well-known travel and leisure brand to the portfolio. In May 2015, the company changed its name from Bravofly Rumbo Group to lastminute.com group, aligning the corporate identity with the newly acquired flagship brand. The group continued to broaden its digital ecosystem in the following years. In 2016, it launched Travel People, an advertising platform, and acquired WAYN, a social travel network, for £1 million. These moves extended the group beyond conventional travel transactions into audience engagement and travel-related advertising. In November 2017, it acquired Hotelscan, a hotel-metasearch engine whose service aggregated accommodation information from numerous online booking sites. In December of the same year, the group acquired Comvel GmbH, a Munich-based company founded in 2004 that operated the German travel website weg.de. The acquisition added a German package-holiday and all-inclusive-travel specialist to the portfolio. In April 2019, Lastminute.com Group created Forward, a media company. This initiative reflected a broader strategy of using the group’s travel audiences, digital distribution, and content capabilities in media and advertising as well as in booking. Across its portfolio, the group operated websites and mobile applications in 17 languages and 40 countries. Its brands covered direct travel retail, airfare and accommodation metasearch, cruises, package holidays, and related media services. The reference material attributes approximately 43 million monthly unique users to the group, without specifying the measurement period. The resulting organization is a multi-brand online travel house rather than a single-service booking site. Volagratis and Jetcost represent comparison-led travel discovery; Bravofly, Rumbo, lastminute.com, and weg.de provide broader booking and holiday propositions; Hotelscan specializes in accommodation comparison; and Crocierissime.it focuses on cruises. The available sources establish the group’s historical acquisitions, operating scope, and public-market listing, but do not provide reliable current information about its executives, exact ownership, ticker, official website, or detailed present-day financial performance.
- 2019
Forward media company created
[1]The group created Forward as a media company.
- 2017
Hotelscan and Comvel acquired
[1]The group added hotel metasearch through Hotelscan and German package-holiday distribution through Comvel and weg.de.
- 2016
Travel People launched and WAYN acquired
[1]The group expanded into travel advertising through Travel People and acquired the social travel network WAYN.
- 2015
Lastminute.com acquired and corporate rebrand completed
[1]The group acquired lastminute.com from Sabre Holdings for £76 million and adopted the lastminute.com group name.
- 2014
Public listing on SIX Swiss Exchange
[1]The company was listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange in Zurich on 15 April.
- 2013
Jetcost acquired
[1]Jetcost, a French airfare-metasearch engine, joined the group.
- 2012
Rumbo acquired
[1]The group acquired the Spanish online travel agency Rumbo.
- 2006
Group organized and international expansion begins
[1]The business was organized as a group, moved its headquarters to Chiasso, and introduced localized websites in several European markets.
- 2004
Volagratis launched in Italy
[1]Fabio Cannavale and Marco Corradino launched Volagratis as a low-cost-flight search engine for the Italian market.
Products and positioning
A multi-brand, international digital travel group combining online travel agencies, flight and hotel metasearch platforms, travel-media activities, and localized booking services.
Online travel agency
lastminute.com
The group’s namesake online travel and leisure retailer, acquired from Sabre Holdings in 2015. It offers a consumer-facing digital travel proposition centered on booking and discovering flights, holidays, accommodation, and leisure travel.
Flight metasearch and online travel · 2004
Volagratis
The Italian-origin brand that formed the group’s early foundation. Initially launched as a low-cost-flight search engine, it expanded its travel offering to include hotels, flights, city breaks, holidays, cruises, and car rentals.
Online travel agency · 2000
Rumbo
A Spanish online travel agency acquired by the group in 2012. Rumbo provides a broad travel-booking proposition covering hotels, flights, city breaks, package holidays, and cruises, with activity in additional European and South American markets.
Online travel agency · 2006
Bravofly
A full-service travel website founded in 2006. Its localized sites operate across multiple markets and languages, offering digital travel-booking services within the group’s international brand portfolio.
Airfare metasearch
Jetcost
A French travel-metasearch service acquired in 2013. Jetcost focuses on comparing airfares and operates in 38 countries, helping users discover flight options across airline and travel-provider inventories.
Hotel metasearch
Hotelscan
A lodging-metasearch engine acquired in 2017. Its service aggregates accommodation information from online booking websites and maintains a large, regularly updated property database.
Package holidays
weg.de
A German travel website operated by Comvel GmbH. The brand focuses particularly on package holidays and all-inclusive vacations and joined the group through the acquisition of Comvel in 2017.
Cruise travel
Crocierissime.it
An Italian travel website specializing in cruise-related travel offerings. It forms part of the group’s broader portfolio of category-specific and localized online travel brands.
Travel advertising platform · 2016
Travel People
A travel-focused advertising platform launched by the group in 2016. It represents the company’s expansion into commercial audience and advertising services alongside travel booking and metasearch.
Travel media · 2019
Forward
A media company created by Lastminute.com Group in 2019. The initiative extended the group’s activities into travel-related media and audience-focused digital content.
Brand decisions
2019
Creation of ForwardStrategyBackground
The group pursued travel-related media and audience activities alongside its core travel-commerce businesses.
Action taken
It created Forward as a media company.
Aftermath
Forward added a media dimension to the group’s portfolio.
2017
Acquisition of Hotelscan and ComvelM&ABackground
The group continued assembling specialized travel-discovery and regional booking assets.
Action taken
It acquired Hotelscan, a hotel-metasearch engine, and Comvel GmbH, the German operator of weg.de.
Aftermath
The transactions strengthened the group’s accommodation comparison capabilities and its German package-holiday presence.
2016
Expansion into travel advertisingStrategyBackground
The group’s travel websites and user audiences created an opportunity to develop services beyond transaction-based travel booking.
Action taken
The company launched Travel People as an advertising platform.
Aftermath
The initiative broadened the group’s stated business scope into travel advertising.
2015
Acquisition of lastminute.comM&ABackground
The group sought to expand its European travel portfolio with an established online travel and leisure brand.
Action taken
It purchased lastminute.com from Sabre Holdings for £76 million and subsequently changed its corporate name from Bravofly Rumbo Group to lastminute.com group.
Aftermath
The acquisition made lastminute.com the group’s namesake flagship and reshaped its corporate identity.
Acquisition price. £76 million (March 2015)
Sources1 sources
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