Travel Counsellors, the UK’s largest and fast-growing technology platform for travel entrepreneurs, announces the acquisition of Holidaysplease, a network of specialist travel advisors, as the company continues to report significant growth and its focus on supporting and growing its own community of travel business owners.
Birmingham-based Holidaysplease is an award-winning travel company with approximately 100 home-working travel experts, 50 franchisees, and around 50 employees, and shares Travel Counsellors’ people led values and customer first business model.
The acquisition further supports Travel Counsellors’ focus on empowering and connecting nearly 2,000 travel professionals to run and scale their own businesses and provide an exceptional level of care to their customers by leveraging its personal, digital platform and global community. The move will enable the Holidaysplease homeworker and franchisee communities to continue running their businesses, supported by its current Directors, wider leadership team and support staff. It will create opportunities for all to benefit from being part of the wider Travel Counsellors community and will see the businesses working collaboratively to build on their collective success, expertise, and knowledge.
The deal marks Travel Counsellors’ first acquisition in its near 30-year history and comes hot off the heels of record trading months in both January and February 2023 with a total of more than £200m of sales. This performance has been underpinned by very strong consumer demand for top selling destinations such as the USA, Spain, Greece, UAE, and the Maldives, with passenger numbers up by 43% this year to date compared with last year and 21% higher than in 2019. January 2023’s sales performance represented a 50% increase on the January prior to the pandemic and meant the Company traded 65% up on pre-pandemic levels across Q1 of its new financial year (1st November 2022 – 31st January 2023).
Steve Byrne, CEO of Travel Counsellors, comments: “We are delighted to have acquired such a highly regarded and successful business, finding a company that is both culturally and strategically aligned to our people led values and relentless focus on customer care. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the entire Holidaysplease community; we are extremely excited at what this combination will mean for both businesses, our communities of travel experts, and our customers.
“We are incredibly passionate and focused on building a community of the very best travel entrepreneurs who are empowered by our platform to deliver exceptional customer experiences. Both businesses share incredibly similar cultures and this is clearly reflected in both brands’ excellent customer feedback and ratings, including consistently achieving 5-star ‘Excellent’ ratings on Trustpilot.
“Both businesses share outstanding momentum having each delivered exceptional growth in 2022 as well as record-breaking performances in January 2023. I am confident that this combination will only serve to strengthen both business’ momentum and offers a safe, secure, and exciting future for all within the community.”
Charles Duncombe, Director of Holidaysplease comments: “We are delighted that Holidaysplease is joining the Travel Counsellors community. Travel Counsellors is a business we have long-admired for its relentless customer focus, multi-award-winning proposition, and outstanding, technology-led growth.
“The opportunity to become part of such a strong, fast-growing business with significant growth prospects was incredibly compelling. I would like to thank our staff, homeworkers, franchisees and customers who have contributed to our success so far, and have no doubt that our community will continue to thrive and be cared for as part of Travel Counsellors. I am looking forward to working closely with Steve and the rest of the Travel Counsellors team to deliver our ambitious shared vision for the future.
“We would also like to thank Hays Travel for the tremendous support that they have given us over the years. When we came to Hays we were three people and a business plan and without their help and guidance, we may not have grown much beyond that. They have really enabled us to fulfil our dreams and for that we will be forever grateful”.
Holidaysplease Ltd has been a member of Hays Independence group since 2005. Commenting on the acquisition, Dame Irene Hays, Hays Travel said:“It has been a pleasure and a privilege to work with Charles and Richard, for more than 18 years, to support them in growing their business. We wish Travel Counsellors and Holidaysplease every success with the acquisition.”
The acquisition builds on the Travel Counsellors’ exceptional growth over recent periods highlighted by its record financial performance in 2022 when TTV on the Travel Counsellors platform increased to more than £700m, representing an increase of more than 300% against the prior year, and supporting the Company’s momentum as it accelerates towards generating £1bn+ of platform sales in FY23.
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