Golf holidays operation gets out of bunker

Aug 16 2008 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

AGOLF travel company has been wound up and will now operate as a subsidiary of a successful outdoor travel business.

Customers of 1st Tee Golfing Holidays, of Northumberland, have been assured their overseas breaks will be honoured, although some creditors may not be paid, nebusiness.co.uk has learned.

Kevin Batty, owner of the now defunct 1st Tee company, will run the new branch of Activities Abroad, which will be known as Golfing Holidays.

1st Tee and Activities Abroad were both based in the same offices in Stannington and the new joint company will continue to operate from that base.

Mr Batty said: “We share an office with Activities Abroad. It just seemed a natural move for the two companies to operate as one under the Activities banner.

“It’s business as usual with Golfing Holidays and everyone who booked trips with 1st Tee will have those honoured by the new company.”

Mr Batty said that 1st Tee, which had been in operation since 2001, had organised golfing holidays to Spain and Portugal for 1,300 people last year and has an annual turnover of £700,000. The liquidation of the company, which had one other employee, is being handled by Tenon Recovery, based in Sunderland. No one from Tenon returned calls yesterday.

Mr Batty said there are a “small” number of creditors who may not get paid, but the amounts involved are “not substantial”.

Activities Abroad managing director Barry Nolan said the addition of the golfing division to the business was a natural fit and would help in its rapid growth.

Activities Abroad organises multi-activity outdoor family holidays for the higher end of the market. It employs 12 people and turned over £2.4m last year.

Mr Nolan said: “There was a perfect synergy between ourselves and the golfing business. We had known Kevin for years and this is a logical partnership. We are currently experiencing a period of rapid growth and expect to reach an annual turnover of £4m this year.

“We have a client base of 35,000 people with most of our customers being based in the Surrey, Hampshire and Cambridge areas.

“This is also a good market for the golfing side of the business. We are experiencing strong demand in Canada where some of the resorts offer the canoeing and kayaking experience as well as golf, which is a perfect trip for the golfer who wants to combine time with the family with golf and adventure.

“We are a North East company although most of our clients are from outside the region. Despite that, we are determined to maintain our North East roots.”