NEWS ROUND-UP NEWS IN BRIEF
Daly leaves On the Beach after a decade at business
On the Beach chief marketing officer Alistair Daly is quitting after almost a decade. He will leave the online travel agency at the end of March and have six months off before taking on other projects in a non- executive capacity, which could be in travel or other sectors. Alan Harding, who joined On the Beach in 2014, has been promoted to marketing director.
Co-op Travel Consortium hires Marriott as new BDM
The Co-operative Travel Consortium has appointed Dale Marriott to the new role of business development manager. Marriott joins from Jet2holidays where he was senior sales executive for six years. He will start his new role on March 12 and will be tasked with raising the profile of the consortium and recruiting members.
Abta calls on agents to report firms violating IFR
Abta is urging travel agents to submit evidence of violations of the Interchange Fee Regulation. The IFR was intended to reduce banks’ overall card charges but Abta says other fees have been increased or introduced, and is calling for more transparency. The Payment Services Directive, introduced on January 13, bans all card charges.
COMMENT: “The new Atol scheme may have been tweaked to be more robust, maybe more secure, but not necessarily more practical” Ken McLeod, page 26
Charity status helps ATD Foundation raise money
Lucy Huxley
lucy.huxley@
travelweekly.co.uk
A foundation set up by Attraction Tickets Direct and Do Something Different founder Oliver Brendon last year has received charitable status.
The ATD Foundation supports education, water sanitation and football projects in Zambia. Its new status means it can now accept donations towards the work it does in Africa. It has set up the Livingstone
Youth Football Academy in the capital Lusaka, which operates teams for boys and girls. The teams currently play at a school, but Brendon said grants had enabled the foundation to purchase a plot of land to build a new ground and changing rooms. Brendon said the focus of the
project was to provide nutritional food, support and education for the academy’s players, whose first team plays in the third division of the Zambian football league. The five-year plan is to create opportunities for children in more remote areas of the country, and provide them with transportation and accommodation.
Thomas Cook to shut 27 shops and scrap cluster manager roles
Thomas Cook plans to close 27 shops, putting 210 roles under threat, but is creating 360 store manager roles. The stores proposed to close are
mainly Co-operative Travel shops that are either in close proximity to other stores, or located where
there is a decline in footfall. It follows several rounds of shop closures in the last two years, including in December when Cook revealed it was shutting 50 stores, putting 400 staff under consultation. The latest planned closures will
reduce Cook’s retail network to 601 by May. The retailer is also to scrap
its cluster manager structure nationally after a successful trial in six regions last year.
8
travelweekly.co.uk 8 March 2018 ZAMBIA: ATD Foundation helps the Livingstone Youth Football Academy
He said: “I took my son to see Arsenal play Man City at Wembley the other week and they were terrible. But [when you watch] football in Africa, there is such passion. Football is such a force for good. It brings communities together and promotes great ethics around education. There is gender equality and opportunity for all.” Brendon said the foundation,
which employs two full-time members of staff – one in the UK and one in Zambia – also has benefits for his employees. “ATD employs a lot of millennials and it’s very important to them to
be part of something more than just a money-making machine. “Once a member of staff has been with us for six months, they can go and see the work we’re doing over there. Thirty have gone so far. They have to raise £1,000 themselves, and we subsidise their trip. They are always running quizzes and other events to raise money. It’s brilliant.” Brendon visits the projects
three or four times a year. On his most recent visit he presented
trophies to the players of the year. › Attraction Tickets Direct eyes growth: Business, page 71
Instead, it is creating 360 new
store manager roles. Cluster managers, assistant managers and customer service managers can apply for store manager positions. Cluster managers were
introduced in 2013 but Cook said the scrapping of these in six regions last September had seen improved performance in those areas. Cook said its reduced high street
presence meant dedicated store managers were now better suited to its “omni-channel” approach.
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