The Lotus Group is a British travel company that owns DialaFlight, Supertravel, and Lotus Business Travel. The company organises the travel arrangements, including flights, hotels, tours and car rental, for almost half a million people a year.
Operations
DialaFlight, whose customers book flights by telephone, generates 80% of The Lotus Group sales; its other companies include Supertravel, which provides luxury ski and golf holidays, and Lotus Business Travel, which handles business travel arrangements for SMEs. The company's business model for corporate travel involves offering clients discounted prices for making immediate payment, rather than buying tickets on credit. The group started using a new IT system in 2002 which helped profits grow 51% in a year, from £3.3m in 2000 to £11.5m in 2003. In December, 2013 the Lotus Group made the '1,000 Companies to Inspire Britain' list of the UK’s most exciting small and medium-sized companies, drawn up by the London Stock Exchange. The Lotus Group has also made the Profit Track 100 list of Britain's top 100 private companies with the fastest-growing profits three times, and the Top Track 250 list of Britain's leading mid-market private companies with the biggest sales seven times. Both these league tables are published by Fast Track, a network of the UK's top-performing private companies, in association with The Sunday Times. In 2011 the company set up its own charity, Make My Day Better, which supports a number of projects in third world countries, plus educational and medical research. This includes donating to, and arranging air links for, UK disaster response charity ShelterBox.
Company founders
The company was founded in 1980 and is still run by two of the original founder members Peter Stephens and Christine Burrowes who own a stake of 75% and 25% respectively. Stephens, who used to work as sub-editor on the Kent Evening Post newspaper, was named as 79th in the Management Today list of Britain's Top 100 Entrepreneurs 2006, and The Sunday Times list of the Richest People in Travel in 2012.
DialAFlight entered legal proceedings against a number of travel review sites in 2009, after libellous comments appeared on those sites. In August 2013, the company was one of a number that boycotted advertising on the social-networking website ASKfm after 14-year-old Hannah Smith killed herself after being bullied by users of the site.
