Escorted tours specialists Page & Moy is to undergo a radical relaunch following a group-wide restructure that is expected to involve the loss of 60 jobs.
Announcing details of the restructure, Page & Moy parent company Kaleidoscope Travel Group also revealed plans to begin selling one of its other brands through the trade.
The group is one of the largest escorted tours specialist in the UK and also operates direct-sell brands Travelsphere – which will undergo a relaunch this year – and singles specialist Just You.
Page & Moy is likely to undergo radical changes in 2010 for its 2011 tours programme. Group chief executive William Burton, who joined in November last year, said: “Page and Moy will be a more radical relaunch [than Travelsphere] because we believe there is huge growth potential. We want to develop some new product and services as part of that to grow the business.”
Page & Moy has only been sold through travel agents for the last two years and its trade sales have doubled in the last year, although less than 5% of its sales currently come from agents.
Burton would not reveal which of the group’s other brands is looking to work with the trade, but said: “We are looking at distributing at least one of our other brands through the trade from next year, to sell holidays for 2011.”
He added: “We are consciously growing [Page and Moy’s] trade sales and will continue to, but I suspect the company will always remain fundamentally direct-sell.”
The restructure, a result of market conditions, aims to save £1.5 million a year. From today 60 staff from across Kaleidescope Travel Group are in a 90-day consultation. Jobs threatened include administration, customer service and call centre staff.
A further 20 jobs are being switched within the business to other roles following the decision to set up a new product development team and a hotel contracting team. Previously the group has worked through ground agents to contract accommodation.
“We offer around 1,200 hotels around the world and we are never going to contract all of them direct but we want to pick off the key, high-volume ones to have direct relationshiops with,” added Burton.