The new Thomas Cook Group is likely to retain the Going Places name and keep the former MyTravel-owned shops open even where these face Thomas Cook outlets, so long as they are profitable.
Thomas Cook chief executive Manny Fontenla-Novoa made the pledge before 400 members of the Institute of Travel and Tourism attending their conference in Gran Canaria.
He said: “There will be shops where there is an overlap between Thomas Cook and Going Places. But I don’t see it as a problem if we manage it properly and get the leases right. There is a high likelihood you will still see Going Places as a brand.”
The group formed from the merger of Thomas Cook and MyTravel later will have more than 1,000 outlets in the UK. It will formally begin trading on June 19.
Fontenla-Novoa said: “Thomas Cook is a wonderful brand, but it does not stretch across everything. If we have two shops in a town facing one another and they are both profitable, why call them both Thomas Cook?”
He acknowledged some of the £95 million in projected annual cost-savings from the merger would come from the retail empire, but repeated an earlier pledge that these would not come from salary savings.
“We are looking to redeploy all the staff in our shops,” he said.