Hays Travel says it is looking to turn over in excess of £2 billion this year as the independent agency group revealed it is close to reaching an optimum number of stores.
The UK’s biggest travel agency chain reported a turnover of £1.1 billion in the year to October 2019 – before it took over Thomas Cook’s entire retail estate.
The business has now opened 476 of the 553 former Thomas Cook stores, having been granted the licence to occupy all properties for 12 months.
It closed ten outlets at the end of last year but has since opened in a further 15 locations.
Including its original Hays Travel stores, the company operates a total of 650 shops across the country.
Managing director John Hays said the acquisition of Thomas Cook’s stores had presented “lots of challenges”, but revealed: “We’re ahead of where we predicted and we had a very productive meeting with the CAA recently.”
Chair Irene Hays said there had been some consolidation and stores had been closed due to being in a state of disrepair or because they were due to be demolished as part of redevelopments.
In other cases Hays has opened in completely new premises or new towns, most recently in Gosforth in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Irene Hays said there may be “one or two more” shop closures but said the business was “there or there abouts” in terms of its retail size.
John Hays said there had been a “fascination” with the Thomas Cook shops it has closed, but the reality was there were “lots of examples where Hays was trading two shops successfully in a lot of towns”.
He also said the more important focus was on staff – of the 2,500 former Thomas Cook retail workers, 2,300 are currently employed by Hays, and 3,000 shop staff are employed overall.
Hays Travel held its consortium conference in Birmingham on Thursday, which was postponed from the end of last year.
Hays Travel Independence Group (IG) welcomed eight new agency members since September, seven of which were formally part of the Freedom Travel Group.
The IG business, which counts homeworking companies Not Just Travel and Travel Designers among its members, accounted for almost half of Hays’ overall turnover last year, with retail making up most of the other half.
However, this is likely to change following its retail expansion.
John Hays said he wanted to grow the consortium business, which has around 100 members, but the approach had always been to focus on “quality not quantity”.
Hays IG member sales and profits were both up almost 12% last year.
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