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2003 Annual Report and President's Message

2003 Annual Report


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President's Message

2003 was a great year for VRX. Our revenues grew 328% and our margins increased from 13.9% to 40.4%. Throughout the year, we signed several prominent new customers, most notably Southwest Airlines Vacations, MGM Grand Vacations, and Air Canada Vacations; we shot and processed over a thousand North American hotels; and we began shooting hospitality and destination content throughout Western Europe.

While all of us at VRX are proud of these accomplishments, our focus is on tomorrow and the strategies and actions required to continue our rapid growth. We recognize that in order to make VRX a truly great company, we must remain focused on our goals and continue to raise the bar in our industry, those that we currently serve, and those that we plan to enter.

Four years ago, when VRX was founded, our vision for the online travel industry was shared by few. Today, many of the leading travel companies value and share our vision: To create an immersive online travel environment that enables consumers to thoroughly research and confidently book all modes of travel, accommodation, and destination activity.

With the initial concerns of booking online slowly subsiding, consumers are now looking for ways to research and compare their travel options online. Travel consumers want to "see" where they can go, where they can stay, and what they can do. Every consumer wants to make confident purchasing decisions and be happy with their results. This is our core purpose: to educate, empower, and compel consumers.

Since VRX was founded in January 2000, we have focused on meeting the needs of the North American online travel industry, or more specifically, the web savvy North American travel consumer. This segment of the travel market has shown exceptional resilience and strength in the face of global disasters and political turmoil over the past few years. In 2003 alone, online travel revenues increased $4.6 billion, from $22.7 billion to $27.3 billion.

From the beginning, we have been committed to creating the highest quality, most user-friendly, interactive visual content on the Internet. Our efforts and end results have attracted the attention of many of the largest and most successful travel companies in the world. Our ability to create innovative new content solutions that can be used to effectively educate and compel travel consumers has elevated VRX to the top of our industry. In order to continue to meet the demands of our customers and travel consumers, we continue to adapt and grow our product and service offerings. Our adaptability and innovativeness allows us to capitalize on emerging opportunities faster than our competitors and continue to gain market share where others are losing. As a result of our ongoing efforts to produce the best online visual content, our products and services are becoming an increasingly important part of our customers' online marketing programs and consumers daily lives.

In 2003 much of our focus was on the North American Hospitality Industry. From January to December, we shot and delivered over a thousand hotels throughout Mexico, the Caribbean, and the US and in the fall of 2003 we began shooting hotels in Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Rome.

Our expansion into the European hospitality industry allowed us to broaden the geographic coverage of our destination archive to include many of Europe's top destinations. In March 2004 we launched a new marketing campaign entitled the "Great Cities of Europe" with the release of the most comprehensive virtual coverage of Paris, France. Our coverage of Paris includes over 160 virtual tours of Paris' famous tourist attractions and public venues along with eight integrated interactive maps of Paris' popular neighborhoods and regions. With the launch of the "Great Cities of Europe" campaign we unveiled a new mapping style that utilizes a new color palette, a new perspective, and 3D illustrations of the major focal points within each destination. The new mapping style is a direct result of our ongoing efforts to increase the utility and appeal of our interactive maps. Throughout 2004, we expect to launch several new European cities, including London, Amsterdam, and Rome with the same level of coverage and detail as Paris. This is an exciting new campaign for VRX and we expect it will generate several new opportunities for VRX throughout 2004 and 2005.

With the launch of the "Great Cities of Europe" campaign, and the hiring of several key business development personnel in prominent global markets, our focus in 2004 is expanding to include the global Destination Marketing Industry (including tourism boards and convention visitor bureaus) as well as the North American and European Hospitality Industries.

In addition to these production and licensing opportunities, VRX is exploring several other initiatives that leverage our core competencies and will enable us to diversify our revenues across several product and service offerings as well as across several industries.

While the Company realized exceptional growth in both revenues and market capitalization in 2003, we recognize the need to continue increasing our investor base in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

In looking back on our many accomplishments in 2003 I am particularly proud of the growth in our working capital. We started 2002 with a woring capital deficit of $360,000 and ended 2003 with working capital of $1.8 million. With our cash balances approaching $2 million, we can now confidently pursue several exciting opportunities that lay before us in North America and abroad.

Looking forward, I am confident that we have the team to successfully capitalize anything that we pursue. On behalf of the team at VRX and our Board of Directors, I would like to thank you, our shareholders, for your ongoing support as we continue to build VRX into the truly great company that we all envision.

David MacLaren

President, CEO, Director