Former type Public Products Passenger transport Headquarters Rochdale, United Kingdom Ceased operations 2007 | Defunct 2007 Successor Thomas Cook Group Founded 1972 Parent organization Thomas Cook Group | |
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Industry Transport (Package Holiday Group) Fate Merger with Thomas Cook AG Key people Michael Beckett (Chairman), Peter McHugh (CEO), John Allkins (Finance Director), John Bloodworth (Managing Director UK), Sam Weihagen (N Europe), Michael Friisdahl (Canada), Greg McMahon (Group Secretary), Steven Olivant (Communications), James Jennings (Strategy), Bill McQueen (HR) | ||
This article contains historical information about My Travel until its merger with Thomas Cook AG - for the new company see - Thomas Cook Group
Contents
MyTravel Group plc was a package holiday company based in the United Kingdom. The group included brands such as Airtours, Aspro, Cresta, Direct Holidays, Escapades, Manos and Panorama in the UK and Ireland, Sunquest Vacations and ALBA Tours in North America, and Ving, Always, Tjæreborg, Spies, Skibby, MyTravel Tango, Bridge and Saga Solreiser in Scandinavia. The company included an in-house airline, MyTravel Airways, however, following the merger of MyTravel and Thomas Cook AG on 19 June 2007, these brands passed to the new combined Thomas Cook Group plc.
The Group was a FTSE 250 listed company with a retail estate of over 700 shops and a total ownership of 31 aircraft, 81 hotels and resorts, 14,600 employees and a customer base of over 5.7 million people worldwide. MyTravel Group PLC had an estimated market capitalization of over £1.43 Billion GBP.
History
The group was founded under the Airtours brand in 1972, when David Crossland purchased a series of small travel agencies in Lancashire, United Kingdom. (David Crossland purchased Pendle Travel Services, a travel agency business consisting of just two stores in Lancashire. A second travel agency business was acquired shortly after from Albert and Ivy Roberts who had registered it using their initials, A.I.R. Tours. The Airtours name was born. ).The group began operating package holidays and launched its own in-house charter airline, in the early 1980s.
During the 1990s, Airtours purchased Scandinavian Leisure Group (SLG) including award winning tour operators such as Ving and airline; Premiair.
In 2002, Airtours Group plc, rebranded under the new company-wide banner of MyTravel Group plc. This included a name change for Airtours International and Premiair to MyTravel Airways. Shops throughout Northern Europe were rebranded to MyTravel however UK retail outlets remained under the banner of Going Places due to the immense brand awareness and popularity - a brand that continually wins the accolade of ‘UK’s Favourite Travel Agent’ as voted for by Daily Mail readers. In November 2003, MyTravel sold off its North America Cruise Division to NLG (National Leisure Group) of Woburn, MA. The company ran into financial difficulties in 2004 and needed to implement a debt-for-equity swap in order to complete implementation of a group restructure.
In 2004 and 2005, MyTravel took 5.7 million people on holiday of which 3.4 million were from the UK, 1.5 million from Northern Europe and 0.8 million from North America.
On 12 February 2007, MyTravel Group plc announced that they had agreed terms on a merger with Thomas Cook AG. The merger was given shareholder approval at an Extraordinary General Meeting on 29 May 2007. The parent company of the enlarged group is named Thomas Cook Group plc with its headquarters in the UK and listed in London.