Advance bookings across the Travelzest portfolio of specialist businesses in the UK and Canada for 2010/11 are up by 15%, the group said in a trading update today.
This is on the back if a 10% rise in carryings for summer 2010 following a company restructuring. This saw the consolidation of five remote UK offices into new customer service centre in Cheltenham and six legacy inventory management systems replaced by a single unit.
The new infrastructure also made it possible to launch a new ‘Travelzest Holidays’ website. The unified travel store at www.travelzest.com will offer all of Travelzest holiday content, third party products and new product lines, according to the company.
“The board believes the new marketing and distribution strategies will provide improved performance and increased market share in the coming periods,” the statement said.
But the company admitted that “the UK economic market has presented a challenging environment for our UK operations”.
It said: “Coupled with the division’s numerous restructuring and refocusing initiatives, the division has continued to experience difficulties in capturing market share and maintaining margins.
“The board believes with the continued development of the organisation and launch of new marketing initiatives, the division will now show improved performance.”
Travelzest said it continued to look at acquisition opportunities in its various areas of operations. The group’s operations in Canada have been bolstered by further penetration into the dynamic packaging market.
“This reinforces the group’s progress towards its strategic goal of reducing the winter dependency and achieving a year round consumer offering,” the company said.
“Growth in average retail value and margins has also provided improved performance for the division.” The trading update came ahead of the company delivering results for the year ending October 31 in late January 2011.
Chief executive Jonathan Carroll said: “Following a year of extensive and rapid operational restructuring, we are thrilled to be building on our extensive database of customers using our newly updated and efficient systems in order to drive growth.
“The restructuring of the operations to create a more productive and efficient group will provide continued benefits as the group grows and now allows us to bring together the strength of each operation under a unified team culture with a common goal.
“The newly integrated and restructured systems ensure that we can now cross sell our UK and Canadian offerings efficiently to each market, and with this in mind I am very optimistic that we can enhance shareholder value in the short to medium term.”