| Journal: TWUK | Section: |
| Title: | Issue Date: 17/07/00 |
| Author: | Page Number: 35 |
| Copyright: Other |
California
Operator sets sights on Golden State with dedicated brochure
Report by ALANMOORE
CALIFORNIA is the focus of a new dedicated 148-page brochure of tailor-made and packaged holidays in the Golden State.Valid until April next year, it features sections on Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Diego, Palm Springs, San Francisco, the Central Coast region and Sacramento.
Product includes twin and multi-centre packages, flydrives, hotels from two to five star, car rental and flights. There is also an introduction to skiing in California, which will be followed up with a separate winter sports brochure in August. Resorts will include Heavenly, Mammoth and Squaw Valley.
The Aylesbury-based company, California Holidays, has been set up by three UK partners. They are Tony Fabian, marketing director, Andrew Scott, an accountant who is named as managing director, and Trevor Brunwin, financial director.
The company was formed following the purchase earlier this year of Hawaiian Travel Centre. Fabian said: “HTC has been selling holidays to the US for 20 years and has a good reputation but it was limited to stopovers.
“We intend to further improve the service for booking holidays in Hawaii but also offer a similar operation to California. We then intend to add other US destinations. We hope to launch a new Hawaii programme at World Travel Market but it will be a smaller brochure of 60 pages devoted to the six main Hawaiian islands.”
The company, which was granted an Air Travel Organiser’s Licence last month, has already distributed the California brochure to 4,100 independent travel agents who will receive 12% commission on sales.
Fabian said he was expecting to attract 5,000 West Coast bookings in the first year involving some 8,000-12,000 clients.
n For more information, call 0870 241 2134.
Golden offers: LAConvention and Visitors Bureau European director Francine Sheridan and California Holidays’ Tony Fabian check out the new programme