Travellers set up business in Boro (From The Northern Echo)

Travellers set up business in Boro

1:25pm Wednesday 1st September 2010 in North-East Business News By Andy Richardson

A TRAVEL website set up by three friends in Lithuania is now part of Middlesbrough’s thriving technology hub.

The three people behind online travel planning and ticket site Geogoer had barely heard of Teesside before they moved from their homes in Vilnius to set up operations at the Boho Zone in Middlesbrough town centre.

They are about to launch the ticket sales part of their site and if things go to plan they hope ultimately to be generating technology jobs in the North-East.

Support and funding for the start-up came from The Difference Engine, a mentor-led acceleration programme for digital business based at the North-East Business and Innovation Centre, in Sunderland.

Their help, which included a £20,000 grant, has transformed the operation, which differs from other travel planning sites by offering users the opportunity to buy tickets as well as look at a variety of transport offers and routes.

Dalia Lasaite, Geogoer’s 25- year-old chief executive, who founded the business with friends Andrej Andrejev and Ksistof Ledichov, explained why they swapped the Baltic state for Middlesbrough.

She said: “I have to be honest that, before we came to England, we didn’t know anything about the town. We had to Google Middlesbrough to find out about it and saw pictures of the Transporter Bridge and the town centre.

“But in the short time we have been here we have made some excellent contacts with local businesses who have been very supportive and welcoming towards us.

“At present we consist of the three founders, but as we build the business we hope to take on people. There is excellent scope to grow this type of business in the UK as it already has a highly-advanced public transport network.

“The Difference Engine have been a great help during the start-up phase. We now need to build up a critical mass of users to make the site viable.

“We are confident that we can offer our customers an excellent service. It is a site that appeals to both business and leisure users and it will even allow people to advertise if they have seats available in their own car or minibus.”