Western & Oriental plc is the parent company of a specialist luxury travel group which acts as both a tour operator and travel agent through a number of high quality brands, offering specialist holiday programmes for both tailor made and packaged holidays.

KD.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/05/21/cxequity21.xml

Western & Oriental (20p) floated on Aim in March and is still tiny, but the luxury travel group looks set to grow fast.

It was founded by Peter Howell, who oversaw a score of acquisitions during his time as finance director of Lastminute.com.

But while Lastminute deals with the mass market, W&O was started with the aim of consolidating the highly fragmented luxury and specialist holiday market, which is the fastest growing travel sector.

The company acts as both agent and tour operator and already has a number of brands of its own, including W&O Travel and Regent Holidays.

Last month it strengthened its board with the appointment of Steven Hall as finance director. Hall joined from easyJet, where he held the same position.

W&O looks like an interesting growth story. Buy.

KD.

Like the look of this and the trading statement indicates that things are looking far better this year.