Newspaper article on Travelbyus
From today's Vancouver Sun:
Net-based travel service lays off employees
William Boei Vancouver Sun
Travelbyus.com Ltd., a White-Rock-based travel services company that reported heavy losses Monday, has laid off 110 of its 425 employees because of the U.S. economic slowdown.
A converted junior mining company, travelbyus.com has just completed its first full year in the travel business, during which it acquired several other companies. But its share price has fallen more than 95 per cent in the dot-com collapse that began early last year.
On Tuesday, its shares (TSE: TBU; Nasdaq: TRIP) gained one cent to close at 26 cents in Toronto. Exactly a year ago, they traded as high as $4.88; last Friday, they traded as low as 23 cents.
Travelbyus.com, which uses Internet technology, is operated from its executive offices in White Rock, but most of its operations are in the U.S. It runs conventional travel businesses as well as developing Internet technology for Web sites that travel agencies use to communicate with customers.
Its net loss for last year was $17.4 million or 17 cents per share on revenue of $3.5 million, compared with a loss of $4.1 million or eight cents per share on revenue of $2.7 million the year before.
Most of the layoffs were at a call centre in Reno, Nev. Travelbyus.-com also does product development in Reno, and technology development and marketing from offices in San Diego, Calif.
Investor relations officer Peter Adam said travelbyus.com had expanded the Reno call centre in anticipation of increased sales of "merchant packages" the company has been developing.
"Those sales are down compared to what we had projected because of the slowdown in the [U.S.] economy," Adam said.