Member-only online luxury travel service, Voyage Prive, has reached the UK after four years slowly extending around other European countries and the US.
The UK version of the site will be fronted by former Lastminute.com managing director, John Bevan, working alongside a a number of other industry veterans from First Choice, JAC Travel, Orbitz Worldwide.
The site works by enticing people to become part of an exclusive club that then receive hand-picked, high-end - four or five-star - deals once a week, similar to the Travelzoo deals model.
The twist with Voyage Prive is that the offers are only available for a limited amount of time (a "flash sale"), usually around five days, and bookings are taken on the site.
Bevan claims Voyage Prive will have around 500,000 members by the end of 2010 in the UK. The mothership in France, where the company launched in 2006, alongside sites in Spain, Italy and most recently in the US have around 3.5 million members.
The deals featured include European city breaks as well as short and long haul holidays - up to 30 a week will be available to members.
Bevan, who joined the company in February 2010 ahead of the launch this week after working for a number of other sites as a non-executive director and consultant, defends the walled garden approach taken by Voyage Prive, potentially missing out on random search traffic.
The idea is for users to recommend the site and free membership to like-minded friends, family and colleagues, ensuring the quality of the audience for suppliers is not diluted, he says.
Bevan says the site currently has 85,000 members in the UK, built mainly through direct online marketing rather than buying lists.