NEWS ROUND-UP MOVERS & SHAKERS
➜ SuperBreak sales and product director JANE ATKINS is to succeed Zena Hill as chairman of Tipto. Atkins’ appointment follows Hill’s decision to step down to enable her to spend more time with her family after holding the position for four years.
➜ Fred Olsen Cruise Line’s former sales and marketing director NATHAN PHILPOT has started a marketing consultancy. Travel Profits is understood to be one of Philpot’s new ventures.
➜ Outgoing MSC Cruises head of sales JANET PARTON has been appointed to the same role at Cosmos Tours & Cruises and sister brand Avalon Waterways. Parton will start in mid-September, reporting to chief executive Giles Hawke, ex-executive director at MSC.
➜ Former Travel Republic boss KANE PIRIE has been named a non-executive director of jobs review site WorkAdvisor, which features travel, finance and IT firms. Pirie was chief executive at the online travel agency when it won a high-profile case against the CAA, which had accused it of breaching Atol protection regulations.
COMMENT: “You don’t need millions of dollars to compete, you need billions” Noel Josephides, page 36
Agency owner plans more Hays shops in northwest
Hollie-Rae Merrick
hollie@travelweekly.co.uk
Independent agency owner Don Bircham could open up to five shops a year across the northwest of England after seeing his business’s revenue grow by 25% in two years.
His agency chain, a Hays Travel
franchisee, has increased its shops from 14 in 2014 to 22 this year. It had a turnover of £36 million
in 2014, £40 million in 2015 and is on track to hit £45 million this year, said Bircham. The miniple, which operates
Hays Travel branches in north Wales, Merseyside and Cheshire, had a franchise agreement with Tui until September 2014. That deal meant Bircham’s company, Just Go Travel, could not open a new shop within two miles of a Thomson branch. After the Tui franchise ended,
Hays Travel took a 40% stake in Just Go Travel, which saw all the branches rebranded Hays Travel. Bircham said: “There aren’t any
limits and we don’t have to hold back at all on our growth. “There’s an opportunity for
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Barrhead academy will help develop new and existing staff
Barrhead Travel has opened a staff training academy in Glasgow city centre. The Bothwell Street facility
has been designed to look like a Barrhead Travel branch and will help develop and educate new and existing members of staff. The Scottish agency chain
10
travelweekly.co.uk 28 July 2016 MUNRO: ‘People are our business’
has also introduced a 12-month management programme to develop existing employees.
BRANCH: Retail director Lindsey Barber and Don Bircham in Warrington The older shops will eventually
“It’s important to open in the right places at the right time, and not to rush”
us to expand in the northwest. We’ve just opened in Chester, Warrington, Heswall and Allerton Road in Liverpool. “I can see us opening up to five
shops a year. The momentum is definitely there and we’re targeting market towns. “We’ve added eight shops in two
year, increased staff from 100 to 130 and increased our turnover.”
be refitted to give the chain a “consistent look”. Bircham, who is also chief
executive of Wrexham Football Club, said the mix of products sold had changed over the past two years. Previously, 60% of sales were for Tui products, but now it makes up 40%, with Jet2holidays and Hays’ own tour operation getting a higher share of business. Bircham said he saw no reason
why the chain could not expand to up to 50 shops, but added that it was important “to open in the right places at the right time, and not to rush”.
Chief executive Sharon Munro
said: “Our people are our business, and are firmly at the heart of our growth strategy. “Our in-house training team
has doubled in size in recent years, and this academy gives us a positive learning environment to develop and grow our people across the whole of the business. “This latest investment will also
help us attract, grow and retain the best people in the industry.” Barrhead Travel employs 850 people across 56 locations.
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