news operators
Attraction World misses £60m goal
Rob Gill.
ATTRACTION WORLD has hit out at the “poor performance” of independent agents, as it revealed it had failed to reach its aim of £60m turnover due to the recession. Tony Seaman, the ticketing specialist’s sales and marketing director, said that multiples were outselling the independent sector by 15-to-1. “There’s a lot of apathy from the independents.
They say there is no call for our products from their customers, so they do not ask them if they are interested,” he said. “There are some good independents, such as Barrhead Travel, which does fantastic business with us, but it tends to be the exception. “It is so easy to sell these products, and agents can earn a lot of commission. For example, they can make around £300 on Florida theme park tickets for a family of four. This is something the
customer is going to buy anyway.” Attraction World had set a goal of doubling its annual turnover from £30 million in 2007 to £60 million within three years. However, Seaman admitted sales had not
grown in 2009 and that the company would not achieve the £60 million target in 2010 because of the financial slowdown. It reported a turnover of £29 million for 2009
and expects this to increase to £45 million by the end of 2010. “We were set to meet our targets until the
market conditions changed last year and everybody had to deal with challenging circum- stances,” Seaman said. “In the end we had a ‘par’ year. Sales didn’t
grow, but I’m also pleased that they didn’t decline and that we continued to make a profit,” he added.
Seaman: 2009 was a “par” year
ttglive.com He said that future
growth in the business would mostly come through its retail deals with the major agency chains — it has been working with Tui Travel for four years and won the Thomas Cook ac- count earlier this year. He also said that business
through Thomson and First Choice shops had tripled
during the course of their four-year partnership. Attraction World is continuing to expand its
products and now has more than 5,000 across 43 countries worldwide. Seaman said the key to growth would be to sell
more add-ons to short-haul destinations such as Spain, Turkey and Egypt, instead of just Florida theme parks and attractions. “The product is there — agents just need the
awareness,” he said. “At the moment, 80% of our sales through the multiples are for Florida, but only 18% of the holidays they sell are to Florida. “Around 55% of holidays are to Spain, so you can see the tremendous potential for ticket sales for places such as Siam Park in Tenerife and Port Aventura, as well as all the other activities.”
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