Travel group launches new upmarket venture

Sep 4 2009 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

INDEPENDENT holiday firm Hays is set to launch a new joint venture worth around £20m-a-year aimed at the upmarket, long-haul market.

The Sunderland company is close to finalising a deal with Leicester company Totally Travel, which trades as 1st4cruising, which will see the launch of a new enterprise aimed at affluent over-55s looking for tours from 12 to 28 days.

The new firm will sell multi-destination trips to the USA, Mexico, Cuba, the Middle and Far East through Hays’ existing network of offices, call centres and home workers.

The new venture, which is yet to be named, will be headquartered at 1st4cruising’s Leicester offices while the enterprise will be officially launched at a Hays conference in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, in November.

Meanwhile, Totally Travel, which generates £40m-a-year in revenue, is the latest company to join the Hays Travel Independence Group.

The group was formed in 1995 to give independent agents the support of a large travel industry organisation without compromising independent status and identity, and now has over 150 members

The deal will see Totally Travel’s cruise package holiday product distributed across the Independence Group and Hays Travel group.

As well as 1st4cruising, Totally Travel, which is headed up by long-time travel industry entrepreneur Harry Goodman, is a holding company for holiday website, go-nowtravel.com.

Hays Travel managing director John Hays, who founded the company in 1980 from the back of his mother’s children’s wear shop in Seaham, said: “I’m absolutely thrilled to have such a successful, forward thinking cruise business joining the Independence Group.

“I’m also excited to be able to sell the 1st4cruising product across all our Hays Travel branches and to be working with Totally Travel on another exciting project to be announced in the near future.”

Mr Goodman also founded TV Travel Shop, which he later sold to internet company InterActiveCorp, owners of the American Expedia site.

He said: “I’ve always had a lot of respect for John Hays and the operation he runs up in Sunderland and I’m delighted to have Totally Travel operating as part of the Hays Independence Group. We’re also very excited with the opportunity to sell our cruise package holiday product throughout the Hays group.”

Hays Travel, which boosted sales from £309.7m in 2007 to £347.7m in 2008, has been investing in expansion and June sealed a deal to take over almost half the 57 branches of Staffordshire company Harvey World Travel UK for an undisclosed sum.

The branches will be rebranded as Vacation World and licensed to Hays Travel, which also recently stepped in to take over collapsed North East rival Freedom Direct Holidays and most of its 109 staff.