Hays Travel has acquired Tailor Made Travel after the Welsh miniple entered administration, the company has confirmed.
The deal will cover Tailor Made’s retail estate of 20 shops and about 100 employees.
A statement from Hays Travel said: “Tailor Made Travel Ltd went into administration at 4pm on Thursday, with Deloitte appointed as administrator.
“Hays Travel had been contacted and made an expression of interest. Our offer to acquire all 20 shops was agreed, as was the retention of approximately 100 employees, late Friday afternoon.”
Two weeks ago, Tailor Made Travel chief executive Simon Morgan said he planned to close 15 of the chain’s 20 stores this autumn in order to save the business.
He said he expected to keep five ‘crisis stores’ open, and hoped to introduce a homeworking operation in order to bridge the period between the end of the government’s furlough scheme and next spring, when some revenues would return.
Speaking after the administration and subsequent acquisition, he said: “It’s devastating but I take consolation in the fact that this protects the future of the 100 employees.
“We realised very quickly that the hibernation process would still leave us exposed to rents, rates, salaries and possibly redundancy costs and it just wasn’t practical. It was compounded by the lack of ability to sell any imminent travel and make any immediate commissions.”
It is unclear whether Hays Travel intends to continue with the winter hibernation plan. Travel Weekly has contacted Hays Travel for further comment.
Hays Travel has continued with its expansion plans during the Covid-19 crisis, including opening its 50th shop in Scotland and aiming to open a Glasgow office to support its growing tour operation.
However, at the beginning of August it confirmed it had started a consultation on 878 roles, saying changes to quarantine rules had “turned the tap off” on bookings and it was “no longer sustainable to retain all of its 4,500 staff”.
The consultation affected 344 trainee travel consultants and 534 members of foreign exchange staff.
