New Peltours owner pledges support for travel agents

Preston Travel Group has pledged to continue investing in the trade following its purchase of Egypt specialist tour operator Peltours last month.

The group is making its three brands – Peltours, Greece and Cyprus specialist Amathus Holidays, and Jersey and Guernsey operator Preston Holidays – available on viewdata from January 2010.

Commercial director John Markham said: “Despite talk about new booking systems, many travel agents are still using viewdata so we are making all our brands available on it from January, in time for the busy period.”

The peltours.com website will be relaunched in the next couple of weeks to make it fully bookable, easier to use, and with a quicker search function. The group also plans to run an ad campaign in January 2010 to educate agents about its brands, along with an agent incentive.

Peltours’ 2010 programme comprises all the operator’s existing product with the addition of the Hilton Taba Resort and new deluxe Nile cruises.

Markham said he was looking at developing golf product and classic Egypt, but the core product would still be beach holidays. He said the group had had a difficult start to the year, but sales had picked up over the summer.

“November is usually a quiet month for us but so far we are running 28% up on last year for forward bookings. We are starting to see the seeds of optimism, with people booking early for next year because they may not have taken a holiday abroad this year.”

The group, which also owns homeworking company Kwik Travel and call centre Holiday City, could see further expansion.

Markham said: “We want to build a group of well respected specialist tour operator brands, so I wouldn’t rule out more acquisitions.”