End of an Era - fucking understatement
Holiday Autos - the company I worked for for over 10 years, where I travelled the world, where I met my wife-to-be who's given me the best son in the world...has been bought by the car rental technology provider CarTrawler. Well, when I say bought, I mean sold out. By the bods at lastminute.com (LMN) and Travelocity. I have no beef with the guys at CarTrawler, who are all top blokes! And when I say sold out, I mean raped, shit on, pissed on, thrown in the fucking garbage and then hung out to dry. The sum of the deal: CarTrawler now owns the brand rights and all URL's associated with Holiday Autos. But it's stated as the B2C and B2B2C (business to consumer and business to business to consumer) parts of the company. That leaves the trade, or the part that sells car hire via travel agents. But LMN have stated that they are looking to close down the trade business...and if there's no trade business then there's no need for any of the staff that work in Holiday Autos. Globally there's staff of over 100 people...so for the sake of selling a URL LMN are making over 100 people redundant. It's an absolute fucking travesty. I'm furious. They've let that business run into the ground (well, not quite - it was still making a profit but not enough to make the cunts at Travelocity give a shit about investing to make it a leader once again) and now they're shitting all over the people that CARE about that business, that've worked their BALLS off to try and make it a success.
An old friend, who used to be owner of the Middle East business and who I worked with in Dubai in my many travels, has said it better than I ever could: Companies launch. Succeed. Fail. Develop. Create jobs. Go bust. Run out of cash. Get sold. Are bought back. Get sold again. They can have many lives. They may give you happiness or even break your heart but even knowing all of this, today is still a sad day. This particular one will always be dear to me. It gave me great friends. Great memories. Incredible experiences and a bit of cash. The end of an era. http://www.e-tid.com/cartrawler-buys-holiday-autos-brand/80939/
Portugal, Belgium, Dubai, Brazil, New York, Turkey, Uruguay...the places Holiday Autos took me to. In memory of my travels I may start posting stories of my time abroad...we'll see though.
Holiday Autos - the old, true, awesome Holiday Autos - gone but not forgotten.
