Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based CEO’ operating in the Travel Accommodations space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Ines Djelassi
CEO & Co-Founder of AirBetter
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About AirBetter, Lodgeo: AirBetter provides expertise in all travel and hospitality services.
Tom Valentine
Marketplaces CEO & Co-Founder of Secret Escapes
Secret Escapes has seen explosive growth since its formation in 2010, with turnover forecast to hit £100m in 2014. Tom Valentine, alongside his co-founder and CEO Alex Saint, has catapulted Secret Escapes into a well-known and respected brand in the UK, with a 60% net promoter score and 95% post-stay satisfaction. Much of the company’s success is down to a robust digital and TV acquisition framework, built and managed by Tom, which has allowed the company to confidently spend over £10m annually at a consistent, predictable and positive ROI. This has led to a profitable UK business and huge confidence in international expansion. Tom has scaled the team from less than 30 to over 100 across the UK, Germany, Sweden, Poland and the USA and recently secured GBP39m from Google’s venture arm to fuel global expansion plans.
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About Secret Escapes, Smart Pension: Secret Escapes is a members-only travel club offering discounted rates on luxury hotels and holidays in the UK.
Alex Saint
Co-founder & CEO of Secret Escapes
Alex Saint is the Co-founder & CEO of Secret Escapes. Prior to this, he worked as Chief Executive at DMC Digital Ltd. He was the Consultant of Teletext Holidays. He served as Publisher at ThisisTravel –Associated Newspapers. Before that, he worked as Publisher at Associated New Media. He also worked as Sales Marketing Management at Unilever.
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About Secret Escapes: Secret Escapes is a members-only travel club offering discounted rates on luxury hotels and holidays in the UK.
Doron Meyassed
Co-Founder & CEO of Plum Guide
In 2008 Doron founded Promise Communities (now C Space): a company specializing in solving brand, innovation and insight challenges through mass online collaboration. In eight years, he grew it into a 140+ person leading innovation agency delivering programs for the likes of Twitter, Spotify, Samsung, British Airways, Hilton, EE, and Diageo. Having sold the business to Omnicom, Doron now lives and breathes travel. Having moved country every few years and having a total undetectable accent, no one is really sure where Doron is from. He is also into some seriously bizarre music no one can quite understand, but that won’t stop him trying to explain.
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About Plum Guide: Plum Guide is the definitive list of the world’s best vacation rentals.
Gary Lewis
Chief Executive Officer of Travel Trust Association (TTA)
Gary became Chief Executive Officer of The Travel Network Group in January 2016, after working his way up from Operations Director to Managing Director of the Travel Trust Association. He’s got ultimate responsibility for delivering on our overall strategy and the day-to-day management of everything we do for our members. He is well-known in the travel industry, having helped to develop the first-ever CAA Franchise agreement, which then formed the basis of our ground-breaking T-ATOL solution.
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About Travel Trust Association (TTA): The Travel Trust Association is a travel trade association. Our members consist of travel agents, tour operators and travel organisers.
Can Köseoğlu
CEO of Erasmusinn
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About Erasmusinn: Erasmusinn is a housing platform that helps students find off campus housing and make reservations online.
