Horizon Holidays sets out strategy Juliet Dennis


New travel agency chain Horizon Holidays is to focus on gaining a foothold in the Midlands before embarking on its broader expansion plan across the UK. The agency has already revealed


a target of more than 50 stores within the next five to 10 years. The first Horizon Holidays and


Travel Money concession officially opened in a Morrisons supermarket in St Andrew’s Shopping Park in Birmingham this month following a soft launch at the end of last year. The branch, part of Advantage


Managed Services, has five staff. Managing director Hamza Waris,


whose family has owned nearby Pak Travel for 55 years, said potential


sites in other Morrisons stores in the Midlands had already been identified and were under consideration. He hopes to open a second concession before the end of this year. But he stressed there was no


reason the agency could not look to open stores farther afield in the longer term and did not rule out opening in high street locations. He told Travel Weekly: “We want


to focus on the Midlands first and then go to other parts of the UK. “We’d rather grow from a position


of strength but we could potentially go up north to Scotland or farther south. There is no reason why we couldn’t go on the high street if there’s the right opportunity; nothing is ruled out. “We are looking at a lot of


New Celebrity chief ‘starts to dream’ of next era for the line


Lucy Huxley


Celebrity Cruises’ new brand president has said her team is “starting to dream” about what comes next after the Edge-class series of ships. Speaking on a flying visit to the


UK just 11 days after taking over the helm from outgoing president and chief executive Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, Laura Hodges Bethge said: “In our business, obviously you’ve got to order ships very far out, and it takes quite some time from dreaming and working with the yards to fruition. “So now is the right time to start


6 25 MAY 2023


dreaming. It’s already started and we’ll soon be talking about what comes next for Celebrity.” She pointed out that the line still


has two Edge-class ships to bring into service – Ascent this year and an as-yet- unnamed fifth vessel in 2024. Hodges Bethge said she would be putting her own stamp on the final ship. “Lisa [Lutoff-Perlo] has left me


gifts of ‘white boxes’ on ‘Edge 5’ to create and innovate, which is really fun. We’ve been hard at work on that.” Hodges Bethge added: “Anything


that we add to the brand will be done keeping customers at the forefront – things they covet, want and love.”


Commenting on travel agents and


their role in Celebrity’s future, she said: “I absolutely love the trade! “They’re a huge portion of


our business. When you sit in the premium space, it’s important to have agents as interpreters to help the customer really understand the value proposition and how they can take advantage.” Hodges Bethge admitted


Celebrity had had to “change its style” due to changes in the distribution landscape. “We’ve seen significant


consolidation in the US,” she said. “A lot of folks who had bricks


We are looking at a


lot of Morrisons stores – it’s just about making sure it’s the right fit for us and for Morrisons


Morrisons stores. It’s just about making sure it’s the right fit for us and for Morrisons. We can scale up more aggressively once we have got it right. It’s very exciting.” Waris said the first store was


trading well, adding that its hybrid approach of high-tech and traditional face-to-face appointments was helping to draw in customers. The store has four digital screens – one of which Morrisons shoppers


can see from the tills – featuring a rolling 30-minute video of deals and destination images. There is also a virtual reality booth with headsets to experience destinations remotely. Waris said there was a bright


future for agents in shops, provided they were contactable via different channels. “What we saw in Covid was that


people wanted to come back and talk to agents and call up,” he said. “As agents, we are valued more,


but it’s about being accessible. “We’ve had customers who saw


an offer from watching our video while at Morrisons’ tills and booked a holiday within 15 minutes. But if people are in a rush, we can use our NFC (near-field communication) card to give them our contact details.”


Laura Hodges Bethge


(left) with Travel


Weekly’s Lucy


Huxley


and mortar [agencies] in the pandemic shut those down to go home-based, so we’ve had to change our style there, much like we are in the UK with this new Celebrity For Beginners programme; training new agents up to speed. The beautiful thing is, that across the globe, we’re seeing a lot of new folks become travel advisors, which shows how alive and well this distribution system is.”


Watch the interview with Laura Hodges Bethge at: travelweekly.co.uk/media


travelweekly.co.uk


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