The Vertical Travel Group is to merge the legal entities of its homeworking brands to make it clearer to suppliers how much business the company does.
Peter Healey, group chief executive, said: “We have a strategic plan to merge all of our divisions into one Vertical Travel Group brand while continuing to allow all of our agents to use their own personal or corporate branding.”
As part of the overhaul, two brands – Your Holiday Booking and Holiday Elite – will be phased out, while brands including Luxury Worldwide, Instant Holidays and Instant Breaks will remain online.
Healey added: “We are merging the legal entities so that the suppliers can see who we are and can add up the sales from each division.
“We are relaunching that as Vertical Travel Group, rather than just the individual businesses.
“A lot of the homeworkers trade with their own personal identities, so it doesn’t make a lot of difference to them, but it does make a difference to our relationship with suppliers. Some of the brands will fade away.
“We are doing quite a lot with Disney, but that is split across all our Abta numbers; in future, it will become easier for the suppliers.
“The legal changes will happen before the year-end in April 2025. The brand changes will phase out over a much longer period of time.”
Healey made the announcement during the group’s conference in Torremolinos in Spain last week.
About 100 delegates attended, including 80 agents, along with head office staff and suppliers such as Jet2holidays and Gold Medal.
Healey anticipates the group’s total of about 220 homeworkers will increase to 250 by next April.
Sales this year were reported to be about 17% up on last year, with Healey noting that August was weak but September was very strong.
“Part of the growth is coming from new homeworkers but a lot is from established homeworkers getting back in the swing,” he said.
Healey echoed the sentiments of agents at a Travel Weekly Business Breakfast last week in reference to low deposits driving cancellation rates.
“We have an 8% cancellation rate, which is a bit irritating,” he said. “It’s generally driven by the low deposits that the big operators are offering.”
Vertical’s 2025 Conference will be held at the Anemos Luxury Grand Resort, Crete, on April 27-30.