Flight firm Skyscanner moves in to America

Edinburgh-based travel company Skyscanner has announced plans to tackle the US market for sourcing air tickets online.

The firm already has offices in Singapore and Beijing and plans to open up in Miami, to compete in the American market.

Skyscanner has reported revenues last year reached £33m, while generating air ticket bookings of £2.3bn.

It has reached 30 million visits to its website each month.

Skyscanner has been operating for 10 years and now employs more than 180 staff across its four offices and will be recruiting another 100 employees over the next 12 months.

In moving into the US, Skyscanner is taking on the market leader in this field, the Kayak website.

Gareth Williams, Skyscanner's CEO and co-founder, said: "We plan to match our success in Europe and Asia across the Americas.

"We are already experiencing rapid growth in North and South America led by growth of our mobile apps and the time is right to establish our Americas base.

"It's our ambition at Skyscanner to be the number one in travel search globally, and we're confident that our Miami office will play a big part in achieving that goal."

The company has also confirmed that since Sir David Attenborough's 'Africa' began showing on BBC 1 there has been a sharp rise in interest in holidays to the continent.

Skyscanner said that in January searches from the UK to Africa have increased by more than a quarter compared with the previous month.

Compared with 2012, they are by 14%.

Some firms specialising in African holidays said they had seen a 300% rise in enquiries since the Attenborough series started.