Type Subsidiary Headquarters Luton, England Founded 1965 | Industry Travel Services Travel agency | |
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Key people Nick Longman (Managing Director) Products Charter and scheduled passenger airlines, package holidays, cruise lines, hotels and resorts Founder Roy Herbert Thomson Baron Thomson of Fleet Parent organizations TUI Group, TUI Northern Europe Ltd Subsidiaries Fritidsresor, TheFirstResort, Prisma Tours A/S Profiles | ||
Thomson Holidays is a UK-based travel operator and subsidiary of TUI Group.
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The Thomson Travel Group was owned by the Thomson Corporation of Canada until it was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1998. The headquarters of Thomson UK (TUI UK & Ireland) are in Luton, England.
The Thomson brand, as well as other TUI-owned brands, is due to be phased out by 2018. All TUI-owned brands will operate under the single TUI name.
History
The company (originally named Thomson Tour Operations (TTO), and renamed in 1997) was founded as part of the Thomson Travel Group in 1965 following the acquisition of four tour operators, Skytours, Riviera, Luxitours, Gaytours and the airline Britannia Airways by Roy Thomson.
Intense competition continued between the four acquired operators which allowed the rival Clarksons Travel Group to become the lead player in the new and rapidly expanding UK package holiday market, while Thomson initially lacked any effective strategy to fight back. But in 1971, following the appointment of Bryan Llewellyn as TTO's 7th Managing Director, a whole new Board of Directors was created, with the travel trade veteran Norman Corkhill as company chairman. A clear strategy was now implemented, as part of which the businesses were re-branded and re-launched under a single name as "Thomson Holidays".
Thomson Holidays soon hit the TV headlines with 3 and 4 night holidays in Majorca for only £19. Its similar keenly priced products in the Canaries and Tunisia soon created spectacular growth in the winter sun market.
Clarksons were forced to stop trading under the intense marketing pressure, followed a few years later by Horizon Holidays.
Other new products followed in rapid succession, Cruising with SS Ithaca; Lakes, Mountains and Fjords; Villas and Apartments and Wintersports, City Breaks. The combined success of the re-branding, new products, real-time reservations, strong quality assurance and keen prices enabled Thomson Holidays to dominate the UK package holiday market for 25 years.
In 1972 Thomson acquired Lunn Poly, the largest chain of travel agents in the United Kingdom. The name Lunn Poly was kept until 2004, when the owners rebranded the highstreet outlets as Thomson Holidays in order to create a "powerbrand". The company had insisted that there were no plans to rebrand Lunn Poly, but the name is no longer used by the group. In recent years Thomson Holidays have been taking more of their business via the web, but they retain a big share of the high street travel agency business.
Thomson Travel Group was floated on the London Stock Exchange in May 1998 with a valuation of £1.7 billion. In 2000, TTG was acquired by Preussag AG, an industrial and transportation conglomerate. Preussag was renamed TUI AG on July 1, 2002 and Thomson Travel became TUI UK. Thomson Holidays, Thomson Ski and Thomson Lakes and Britannia Airways (rebranded Thomsonfly, now Thomson Airways after the merger with First Choice Airways) are now subsidiaries of that group, part of TUI Travel PLC.
They were sponsors of Tottenham Hotspur F.C. from 2002-2006.
In 1981 Thomson Holidays were the first recorded users of Business-to-Business online shopping.
On October 19th 1995 Thomson launched their first Internet site for their Portland Holidays brochure.
Thomson Founders' Club
When TTG was floated in 1998, new shareholders were given membership in the "Thomson Founders' Club" which offered a 10% discount on Thomson holidays. Membership was conditional on retaining a minimum of 294 shares, but when TTG was acquired by Preussag membership of the Founders' Club was made permanent and unconditional. However, on 31 January 2008 the Club was abolished without notice or compensation.
Thomson Cruises
Thomson Holidays also operates its own cruise line, Thomson Cruises, that offers cruises around Europe and beyond with 5 ships in the fleet.