Matt Zito, Online Travel Marketing Strategist and Entrepreneur

Matt is an online travel business entrepreneur and travel and tourism marketing strategist.

Matt advises businesses in the travel and tourism industry through his consulting and travel marketing reports, writes Travel Business Profits an e-letter received by hundreds of travel and tourism businesses, travel business owners and professionals worldwide in the travel industry and writes a travel and tourism business column "Marketing with Matt Zito" published bi-monthly for the Bangor Daily News.

Professional Bio

CollegeSkiTrips.com- Online Travel Agency/Tour Operator, Acquired in August 2007. Matt was the former founder and CEO of CollegeSkiTrips.com the leading "youth based" online ski and snowboard travel company in North America. The company is now owned by the largest ski tour operator in the country, Ski.com.

Highlights under Matt's ownership included:

-The #1 buyer of hotel rooms at Breckenridge Ski Resort (Vail Resorts, Inc. a publicly traded company) in the 2006/2007 ski season. In 2007 we sold 2,000 ski and snowboard trips.

-Wholesaler and Partner to STA Travel the 9th largest travel company in the world with 110 retail travel agencies. In 2007 STA Travel was our largest wholesaler and travel partner.

-Online Travel Technology and Software Developer of a proprietary online extranet for 660 retail travel agents to buy ski and snowboard packages for the agencies clients. We built a customized extranet for the STA Travel agents to access to book ski and snowboard trips. The customized extranet included the ability for the agent to search all our inventory, research the resorts, book the trip by making a deposit and paying by check or credit card. We built a customized fulfillment area where the individual STA Travel agents could login and print out the clients receipt and itinerary including all the check in information, driving directions and more. This process was very successful as the STA Travel agents could print out the trip ticket online and personally hand the client the check-in details. We built this system for STA Travel agents that had retail offices on college student campuses.

-Operated a sales distribution network of 15 sales reps that distributed 200,000 brochures a year to over 2,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. & Canada.

-CollegeSkiTrips.com was #1 most visited web site by college students @ Google & Yahoo search engines searching for college ski trips.

-Online Travel Software – Travel Booking Engine Software- We built a customized online travel software booking engine. The online booking engine and reservation system replicated the business process in which college students, youth ski & snowboarders buy, plan, and manage their vacations online.

The Yellow Breeches House –Lodge/B&B Inn, Acquired August 2009. Matt was the co-owner of the nationally renowned fly-fishing lodge and bed and breakfast located in Boiling Springs, PA. Sports Afield named The Yellow Breeches House one of North America’s Greatest Fishing Lodges. Orvis endorsed Fly-Fishing.

Author- Matt is the author of Trade IPOs Online, John Wiley & Sons, New York, New York Trade IPOs Online appeared and reviewed in the most highly respected financial publications and broadcasts, including CNBC television, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Bloomberg, CNN, Reuters, and Business 2.0 Magazine.

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