Travcorp Holdings outlines plans for acquired Specialist Holidays Group brands

Travcorp Holdings chief executive Andy Freeth has outlined plans to strengthen newly acquired brands American Holidays, Citalia and Sovereign Luxury Travel, with ambitions including expanding the operators’ product ranges and introducing “sharper” pricing.

The deal to acquire the Specialist Holidays Group brands from Travelopia was announced on July 16.

 

Freeth said he would continue learning more about the brands before implementing any changes, but added: “We’ll be making sure we can broaden the current offering and we’ll make the prices a bit sharper.”

 

He noted that such a move could be achieved by drawing on the scale of the whole Travcorp Holdings portfolio, which also includes Destination2, Destination2 Cruise and Holiday Gems.

 

He said: “With Sovereign at the moment, if they’re trying to sell Dubai through the trade, the channels through which they’ve been acquiring their product will be very different to what we’ve been doing in Destination2, so it makes obvious sense to put that product in.

 

“There will be better rates because of the tactical relationships we’ve got with many partners across the Middle East.”

 

Caribbean product with “fantastic rates” could also be added to the Sovereign offering, he said. 

 

Simon Garrido, UK and Ireland sales director for Specialist Holidays Group, agreed there was potential to expand the range at Sovereign, which mainly sells single-centre trips.

 

“We can probably grow Sovereign [product] a little bit with some of the Caribbean side of things and the Indian Ocean and the UAE,” he said, noting there would also be opportunities to add twin-centre trips.

 

Sovereign’s trade sales currently account for considerably less of its overall business than Citalia’s, whose trade sales account for 45% of total business, and the traditionally Ireland-focused American Holidays, whose trade figure is about 35%.

 

Efforts over the past year to grow American Holidays’ UK business would continue, Garrido said.

 

“We want to get the American Holidays product to the same level as Citalia’s,” he added.

 

Freeth said Travcorp would first focus on developing “best practice” across the acquired brands, including considering centralising finance functions and installing the same technology across all operations.