Travelzoo appears to be returning to its deals publishing roots after telling the market that it has decided to "discontinue" its fly.com and SuperSearch businesses.
Its 8-K filing released yesterday said:
"On March 30, 2017, Travelzoo...decided to discontinue its 'Search' business, consisting of Fly.com and 'SuperSearch'. This decision supports [its] strategy to focus on its global Travelzoo brand. On March 31, 2017, the company sold the Fly.com domain name to a third party."
No other details are forthcoming.
The sale of the fly.com domain name to a third party is interesting, not only because Travelzoo paid $1.8 million for the URL in 2009 but also because, at the time of writing, the site is currently up and running, returning search results for departures tomorrow which click through to the partner sites.
SuperSearch however is "no longer supported".
In its 2016 full year results, Travelzoo noted that its search business had seen a decline in revenues over the past three years.
In 2016, fly.com and SuperSearch generated revenues of $14 million, a 20% drop on 2015. Income from the search businesses is not separately disclosed.
Without search, it is now relying on its travel and local product line, with its Top 20 deals newsletter and the 28 million subscribers its largest asset.