There were 20 travel website entrepreneurs to start with, all keen to show off their new ideas at a travel technology show in London this week.

The ideas range from social networking sites to publishing, sports travel and cruise review sites. It appears to be boom time - again - for travel online.

Four travel entrepreneurs came up with a shortlist of four - they then repitched in front of all delegates who voted on the winner - Privatefly, a website that collates 700 private jet operators in one place.

(The new site will launch in three weeks time and can be seen at www.privatefly.com/development)

The winners got nothing but a bottle of champagne and some free exhibition space from show organisers Eye For Travel - but the praise of their peers will go a long way to helping Privatefly take off.

The site allows private jet bookings online. It is the first to pull together all the different aircraft operators, and the first to cover the UK and continental Europe. The company doesn't own or manage aircraft.

Last year there were 764,000 private jet flights within Europe, eight per cent of all commercial flights - but two-fifths of all private jet flights were empty.

"Customers will be able to search and compare the whole market," said Adam Twiddell, an ex-RAF pilot who founded the site.

Its first flight was to carry oil executives to Greenland and Iceland in July, 2007 - now the company is looking for investment to employ brokers and IT support.

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