LONDON, April 25 /PRNewswire/ --     Luzi Matzig, the Asian Trails CEO who sold a majority stake of
his business to Kuoni in 2006, Stuart Lewis the founder and CEO of Peltours,
a UK based tour operator specializing in Egypt and the Middle East, Michael
Goren of Group IST, a specialist in cultural tours, and Lakis Venetopoulos,
President and CEO of Variety Cruises, the largest small ship cruise company
globally, have clubbed together to start a new venture that will consolidate
sale of cruises on the internet.

Collectively, they are making an initial investment of US$9m
to finance the company under the leadership of Daniela Wagner, as CEO and
Soren Langelund as COO. The company, which has yet to be named, plans to
build the worlds largest booking web site for cruising on small ships and
river boats. When completed, the site will allow consumers to book a cruise
in "real time" for stand-alone cruises or for any complete cruise packages.
It will also enable boat owners to upload and manage their capacity directly.

The Board is made up of the investors and management, other
directors include Jean-Claude Baumgarten, President of the World Travel and
Tourism Council), Geoffrey Ognall, and Markus Deutsch, the latter being
former President and CEO, Cendant Vacation Rental Group, which is now called
Wyndham Worldwide.

Daniela's initial goal is to develop the company into the
largest aggregator of small boat product in the world. Most recently; she was
Partner at International Tourism Organisation, where she was responsible for
international business development and prior to that was Managing Director of
OctopusTravel, which she grew from a relatively small business into the 4th
fastest growing company in the UK (FastTrack 100 Survey, December 2004) with
a turnover of US$350 million and a presence in over 40 markets.

Soren Langelund will be responsible for all the Technology and
Operational aspects of the business. He has worked in online environments
since the very beginning of the internet revolution. He wrote the business
processes for Opodo prior to its launch and was instrumental in the set up of
that company. He also spent 2 years at OctopusTravel establishing the brand
throughout Asia, before heading the operations division of the newly
integrated b2c companies acquired by Cendant Corporation.

Daniela Wagner said: "I am really excited by this venture.
Small boat cruising is one of the last true niches left in the travel
industry and there is a clear opportunity to captivate consumers by creating
a state of the art booking site with comprehensive content. I am also greatly
encouraged by the quality of talent and the high level of funding we have
been able to attract at this very early stage.""