News

UNPROFITABLE Going Places, Travelworld and Holidayworld shops are likely to close under plans to rebrand Airtours’ UK retail network by the end of 2002.

Airtours admitted some of the smaller shops would shut, but pledged to retain all 4,500 agency staff by relocating them to new, larger MyTravel stores.

Stores affected will be those which are unprofitable, where the lease has run out, or which no longer have the same customer base because the area they are located in has changed or is being redeveloped.

Airtours UKLG chief executive Richard Carrick said: “Some shops will close. We want to evolve the portfolio to have fewer shops, but believe we will need the same number of workstations and the same number of people in bigger, more efficient shops.”

The group has insisted it will not be spending extra cash on rebranding and refurbishing its stores, call centres, cruise ships and airlines.

The normal annual budget for UK shop refurbishment is £15 million.

Group chief executive Tim Byrne said it was not appropriate in the current trading crisis to spend large amounts of additional money on the roll-out.

The entire aircraft fleet of Airtours International and its Scandinavian airline Premiair will be repainted by the end of winter 2005 and brochures will feature the MyTravel name.

The long-awaited bookable website MyTravel.com has also been launched in the UK and Scandinavia and relaunched in the US. The UK site has more than five million holidays.