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.