Away.com Acquires GORP.com

Posted on April 5, 2002

Away.com, an online travel destination, announced the acquisition of New York-based GORP.com (Great Outdoor Recreation Pages), a website covering outdoor recreation and adventure travel. Before the acquisition GORP.com was a major competitor of Away.com in the adventure and outdoor travel market. Both companies had to cut costs and lay off staff during the recent dot-com downturn. The Washington Post reports that about half of GORP.com's 30 employees will be laid off as a result of the acquistion.

GORP.com will become part of The Away.com Network, which includes Away.com, Outside Online (the website of Outside magazine), and AdventurousTraveler.com. Away.com is backed by Gannett Corporation, Circle-T Partners, New World Ventures, Potomac Ventures, and Dodi Ventures.

"We have proven that our business model -- with equal parts media and e- commerce -- can work in an incredibly difficult business environment," said Away.com founder Sean Greene. "By leveraging GORP.com's traffic and other assets, we'll further demonstrate that Away.com will not only survive, but will thrive."

The addition of GORP.com helps Away.com fulfill its mission of providing consumers a one-stop shop for researching, planning, and booking extraordinary travel vacations. The combined company will provide over 500,000 pages of online travel articles and suggestions, a full-service call center for booking vacations, and access to specialty travel suppliers. The combined websites will have 2 million registered users and 12 million monthly page views.

"Together this network provides an absolutely incredible set of resources and tools for anybody interested in an active lifestyle," said Larry Burke, Chairman of Outside magazine and a board member of Away.com. "This is great news for advertisers as well. I've been extremely impressed with Away.com's creative solutions in helping their partners reach such an attractive audience."