Job Spectrum

Travel agent software expert Comtec is making twenty jobs as it is to grow into international markets, it claimed yesterday.The roles have been made by the Cwmbran firm, which develops and installs complicated, searchable booking vacation software of vacations and similar products, for customers including Thomas Cook and TUI Travel.

Comtec started when its founder, Simon Powell, set down in the mid-1990s to find techniques of making his father's successful South Wales travel business, Vacation Express, more competitive.

The organization's first product for travel agents has for a while been transcended in subtlety, but the underlying principle has stayed the same wanting to control the power of software to make the job of identifying and packing vacations simpler for the trade, and a nice experience for the holidaymaker.

It now supplies retail travel selling & management systems, tour operator reservation systems, e-commerce booking solutions and travel CRM solutions with increasingly complex off-the- shelf and specially made travel software. Systems employ tools like video, Google maps and sophisticated search capabilities and offer users uninterrupted access to a variety of related services and goods, including flights, hostels, auto hire, ferry journeys, transfers, parking and insurance. The firm employs 160 folk, with staff in Canada and north Europe supplying virtually four hundred clients, and following a management buy-out in 2008 it has got a £14m turnover, creating money from the first sale of a system, continuing maintenance and commissions.

More recently, it has expanded into new markets in northerly Europe and North America, and its methodology is to resume its expansion by supplying these comparatively gauche markets with the levels of technology that has made it a UK leader. Matt Wakerley, Comtec's chief finance officer, said the organization's success had come about as it was rooted in the travel industry. He explained : we do not just understand software, we understand the travel industry. That has been at the center of our business from the first day.

Our method is much about being the global travel technology company of preference.To do that, we have got to build on what we have produced for the United Kingdom market and develop it for the international markets at first Canada and Europe, but in due course, the U. S. and, naturally, China. A lot goes into that dealing with date formats, different tax regimes in different nations, and just different content. We would like to do that development work here in Cwmbran so we keep our sector data close. The roles have been made with the support of a Single Investment Fund grant from the Welsh Assembly State , secured with the help of professional advisers Broomfield & Alexander, who prepared the firm's business plan and steered the application.

Broomfield & Alexander's company finance director Seamus Gates recounted Comtec was a company with big potential, as it had the capacity to copy its product offer around the planet. They're going to be well-paid roles and will help maintain the corporation's capability to perform at the very top level in a field it has made much its own, he announced.

Ieuan Wyn Jones, Minister for the Economy and Transport, related : The Assembly Central authority is working with firms of every size across Wales to help them in the recession and to guarantee they are going to be positioned to get the most from the opportunities when the economy upswings.It is very excellent news to hear that Comtec will be carrying out its application development in Wales and driving its world growth from their HQ in Cwmbran. It is usually good to see a native company making its mark on the global market and continuing to grow and expand, creating a positive contribution to the Welsh economy..