I was really sorry to hear that Travelzest is selling off its “under-performing UK assets”. Sorry but not surprised.
Travelzest is a large Canadian travel company that started expanding to the UK a few years ago, buying up a handful of excellent small independent specialist tour operators – the sort that give AITO a good name. The sort that are scattered through my Travel-Lists.
They included:
- Captivating Cuba – Typical AITO specialist company. Does one thing really well.
- Best of Morocco – Longstanding, award-winning Morocco specialist operator.
- Tapestry Collection – Interesting one this one. Tapestry Holidays was a well established (and respected, in the industry) operator specialising in small hotels, guest houses, apartments and villas away from tourist hotspots in Greece and Turkey, that, to everyone’s surprise, suddenly ceased trading in Aug 06. Travelzest bought the assets of the company and resurrected part of the portfolio under the new name Tapestry Collection.
- VFB Holidays – French holiday rental & tailor-made holidays specialist for 40+ years.
- Malaysia Experience – Malaysia tailormade specialist
- Peng Travel – Longstanding (since 1971) specialist operator for naturists with a loyal following
- JMB Travel Consultants – Specialist Opera and classical music tour operator.
At the time, I was quite pleased because unusually they weren’t being gobbled up in the normal ‘circle of life‘ scenario. I met their VP Marketing, Stuart Morris, in October 2010 and he confirmed that they would all maintain their autonomy – even to the extent that Travelzest wouldn’t try to create efficiencies by bringing them physically under one roof. They would continue to operate from their existing locations with their existing teams, but they would appear as individual brands on the Travelzest website.
Travelzest also added a small number of other companies I’m not so familiar with. The Wow House Company still keeps its independence, but Faraway Holidays – an online travel agency (OTA) launched in Aug 06 specialising in the Far East – and Holiday Express don’t.
Since then I have wondered if the autonomous/non-autonomous branding really worked. Some looked independent some didn’t. It was a bit of a dog’s breakfast really, and maybe that contributed to Travelzest’s problems in the UK market.
What happened last week was, a lengthy takeover negotiation by another Canadian company, Red Label Vacations, came unstuck over the value of Travelzest’s UK division. As a result Travelzest announced it would…
…concentrate on its Canadian operations and divest of all of its under-performing UK assets. This follows the write down the value of these assets in the financial year ended 31 October 2010. Following this divestment programme, the Group will derive in excess of 90% of its revenue and profits from its Canadian operations, itravel2000 and The Cruise Professionals. The Company will retain a UK base in Cheltenham which will act as an integrated operational centre for the Canadian brands, plus certain developing UK brands such as holiday.co.uk(Holiday Express), flight.co.uk and upper market brand Travelzest Holidays.
It’s not clear exactly which, if any, of its autonomous brands may be folded into “Travelzest Holidays” but most of them will be sold to other companies or themselves.
Let’s hope none of them are lost. They are all way too good for that.
BTW This opening paragraph tells you all you need to know about the UK’s junk media (tabloids & free sheets). It’s a short report on the Travelzest announcement from last Thursday’s Metro (London free sheet newspaper), in the Business section for heaven’s sake, under the headline “Sell-off is under way as travel firm feels the cold”.
“Nudist holiday company Travelzest started to strip off today, putting most of its British travel brands up for sale after takeover talks failed.”
Our press just hasn’t moved on from the ‘nudge nudge wink wink’ Carry On films era of the 1960s. Sigh.
Image: Watz
