Travelscape.com founder goes into Nevada High-Tech Hall of Fame

Even though it's a fitting title, Tim Poster is a little hesitant to consider himself one of Las Vegas' Internet business pioneers.

At the recent eNevada Awards ceremony at the Hard Rock Hotel, presented by the Internet Business Alliance of Nevada, Poster was honored as the eLeader of the Year. He was also inducted, along with partner Tom Breitling, into the Nevada High-Tech Hall of Fame.

"That is so flattering that it's overwhelming, really," Poster said. "I never thought I would get that kind of recognition, and to receive it from your peers in the business world is the highest form of compliment."

Poster, a longtime Las Vegan and graduate of Bishop Gorman High School, left his mark on the local technology scene by starting the first online travel site focused on Las Vegas.

While studying business and finance at the University of Southern California, Poster came up with a business plan because of a class assignment.

"I wrote the plan for what would become Las Vegas Reservation Systems and started it in 1990," he said. "Then I just tried to make it grow as fast as I could."

A business started by securing a block of hotel rooms and placing a small advertisement in newspapers grew into a national travel Web site when Poster and Breitling transformed it into Travelscape .com in 1998.

"It just took off like crazy," Poster said. "It was kind of a late start to get into the Internet business, but it was still like the wild, wild West days of the Internet and we had to come in and stake our claim."

The hotel-building boom of the 1990s combined with the growing Internet travel phenomenon created a huge success. By 1999, Travelscape was offering rooms at 1,600 hotels in 240 cities.

"There's no question that we were very fortunate to have such good timing," Poster said. "The travel business lends itself very well to the Internet. It works so well, it's almost as if the Internet was designed for that purpose. We had built a profitable model before the Internet, but once we found a way to migrate the services online, it really opened my eyes up to the possibilities existing with new technologies."

Last year, Poster and Breitling guided their company's acquisition by Expedia Inc., for nearly $100 million. Poster said he never expected his business endeavors to become so profitable, but attributes much of the success to being in the right environment.

"There are huge advantages in Las Vegas," he said. "People don't think of Las Vegas as one of those wired cities, but the truth is there are a lot of great things Las Vegas has that can make it a mecca for Internet businesses. The tax structure is the best in the country, the growth allows for a lot of different kinds of people to create different businesses, and government agencies here have been very aggressive in recruiting outside businesses to come here."