Type Public Industry Travel Services Travel Agency CEO Simon Cooper (May 2004–) Founded 2004 | Traded as LSE: OTB Area served United Kingdom Headquarters Cheadle, United Kingdom Founder Simon Cooper | |
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Products Holidays
Flights
Hotels Profiles | ||
On the Beach is a UK-based travel retailer specialising in short and medium haul holidays to Europe. Holidays are sold primarily via its website https://www.onthebeach.co.uk and they service over one million customers a year.
Contents
History
Founder and CEO of On the Beach, Simon Cooper, began his career in the travel industry while attending university, when he founded a ski holiday company called On the Piste.[2] He geared the business toward groups of students wanting to go on budget-friendly ski holidays to the French Alps via coach. Cooper operated On the Piste from 1995 to 2008. Meanwhile, in 2004, Cooper started working on a new venture, On the Beach. When Thomson’s purchased On the Piste in 2008, Cooper then directed his full attention to his new platform[2]
In 2007, private equity investor Livingbridge acquired a majority stake in the company for £36 million.
In 2008, the company relocated to larger premises at Spectrum House on Towers Business Park in Didsbury, Manchester to house additional employees.[3]
In 2011 On the Beach expanded further by acquiring Resort Taxis out of administration for £10,000 to assist with transporting holidaymakers in its most popular destinations of Egypt, Turkey, The Balearics, The Canaries, mainland Spain, Greece and The Algarve. The Resort Taxi arm was later re-branded into On the Beach Transfers in 2012. The company also continued to build on its services by founding On the Beach Beds in 2011. The self-contracted hotel organisation allowed On the Beach to contract directly with hotels, attempting to secure better rates for their customers and increase their market advantage.
In January 2012, On the Beach launched its 24-hour resort support service, providing customers with points of contact within their resorts at some of their most popular destinations. By the end of 2012, On the Beach had relocated its headquarters to a new 17’500 square foot property in Cheadle, near Stockport.[7]
In October 2013, Livingbridge sold a majority stake in the business to Inflexion Equity Partners on the basis of an enterprise value of £73 million. On the Beach used this investment to expand its offering of ancillary holiday products such as travel insurance and resort transfers, increase online and television advertising, grow its direct contracting system and develop and optimise its technology platform across multiple devices.
In January 2015 On the Beach expanded internationally by launching in Sweden under the domain name ebeach.se. In September 2015, On the Beach was floated on the London Stock Exchange, valued at £240m. 52 million shares were made available at 184p per share. The company is listed under stock code OTB.
Headquarters
On the Beach is headquartered in Park Square, Cheadle, Stockport, Greater Manchester
Awards
On the Beach has received the following awards:
Marketing
On 26 December 2013, On the Beach aired their first television advert. The ‘Totally Beachin Holidays’ campaign, was filmed in Corralejo, Fuerteventura and was broadcast across the Midlands region on ITV and Channel 4.
In December 2015 the company launched their second television advert. The advert was produced by creative agency Cheetham Bell and again ran with the tagline of ‘Totally Beachin’ Holidays’.