Skyscanner parent in push to create 200 jobs

MARGARET TAYLOR

Skyscanner co-founder Gareth Williams sold the business to China’s Ctrip for £1.4bn last year.

currently recruiting for a range of roles including various managers, trainers and customer service agents.

The centre, which is expected to go live at beginning of 2018, will not be part of the Skyscanner business, which operates independently from its owner.

That said, Mr Dale noted Ctrip will “learn best practice from Skyscanner’s experience in providing online customer service across multiple time zones and 26 languages”.

“The choice of Edinburgh as a city is partly due to the fact Skyscanner’s largest office is

located there, but the high quality of local talent was also a key consideration,” he said.

“Ctrip’s leadership team has visited Edinburgh several times since the acquisition of Skyscanner at the end of last year.

“It is clear to us that there is considerable talent in Scotland and the city makes an ideal base for Ctrip to open a dedicated call centre.”

Although most of Ctrip’s customers are based in China, Mr Dale said the company is not looking for Chinese speakers to work at the call centre.

“While Chinese travellers make

up the majority of Ctrip users, the company continues to expand outside of China,” he said.

“As such, it is looking to provide high-quality customer service to travellers across different time zones and languages.”

The news comes after Ctrip announced earlier this month that the Skyscanner acquisition helped bolster its financial results in the second quarter of this year.

Skyscanner, which continues to be run by chief executive and co-founder Gareth Williams, also did well out of the Ctrip deal, receiving an £18m tax credit in the 2016 financial year. BUILDING giant Galliford Try has said Scotland remains a key market in spite of the firm suffering hefty losses on two flagship projects in the country.

The company said it has recorded an £88 million exceptional charge covering losses incurred on two major joint venture infrastructure projects, which are understood to be the Queensferry Crossing and the Aberdeen bypass.

The £1.35 billion Queensferry Crossing over the Forth opened to traffic last month following delays. The consortium to which Galliford Try belongs blamed the holdups on disruption caused by high winds and bad weather.

In December it emerged that construction on a key section of the £745 million Aberdeen bypass had fallen almost a year behind schedule. Galliford Try is building the road with Carillion and Balfour Beatty.

Asked why Galliford Try was keen on Scotland given the setbacks on the two projects, construction division head Bill Hocking noted the company had said it would not bid for any more big fixed price infrastructure projects.

“You can imagine why,” noted Mr Hocking.

The company said the Scottish Government and local authorities continue to provide a consistent pipeline of work in spite of pressure on public spending.

Galliford Try is working on around 15 projects covering sectors such as health, education and defence. These include the £50m Largs Academy and £69m East Lothian Community Hospital.

Mr Hocking said there is no sign of the flow of contacts slowing down. The construction market

is also in good shape south of the Border. The company does most of its construction work for the public sector.

Galliford Try increased annual profits by nine per cent before exceptionals to £147.6 million in the year to 30 June, from £135m last time. The Middlesex-based group said its construction, housebuilding and regeneration divisions all achieved a strong underlying performance.

The England-focused Linden Homes business has made a good start to the current year.

The group is cautious about the impact of the current political uncertainty and the medium-term outlook for the macro economy. However directors believe the group can still achieve good growth. THE Scottish Government is conducting a survey of the condition of rented accommodation in all types of agricultural tenancies.

At present, rented accommodation held under agricultural tenancies is only subject to a “tolerable” standard which, in other circumstances falls far below the minimum repairing standard expected of private rented housing. In the long term the Government would like to bring the quality of agricultural housing conditions in line with other rented accommodation in Scotland.

This survey will cover all housing on agricultural tenancies and small