About Us

Share Price

99.00 GBp   0.00 | 0.00%

Travelzest is a dynamic travel group, with strong brands in the most attractive, rapidly growing sectors of the travel market

The company was founded by Chris Mottershead, and floated on AIM in 2005. His vision remains the same after two years: to build a highly profitable, fast-growing travel group for the modern holiday market, offering travellers the best available online travel retail experience and a range of outstanding specialised holiday experiences. This vision is being achieved through careful acquisition of online agency businesses and niche holiday companies in expanding sectors, then working with retained or hired management to accelerate profit growth through best-in-class marketing and operations, and through broadening the distribution reach. Travelzest has operations in the UK and Canada.

At the start of 2008, eleven companies had joined the Travelzest Group, three of which are agency businesses, and eight are specialist tour operators. In all cases, the companies are operating in the fastest growing sectors of the market, are low in fixed assets, and have unique, hard-to-copy propositions and attributes that make them resistant to the ‘unbundling’ and price competition being experienced in the mainstream parts of the market.

For the online businesses, these attributes include branding and best-of-breed technology to provide unbeatable search and booking experiences for customers. For the tour operators, the propositions revolve around destination or activity-based expertise, giving rise to high levels of client satisfaction and loyalty. The combination of agency and tour operating brings several benefits: there are two clear platforms for future growth, one based on volume and the other on margin; and there is synergy between the two, with cross-selling possibilities having not yet been fully exploited.

Travelzest is a relatively young company, but the leadership team’s vision, strategy, and ability to deliver excellent results are based on years of extensive industry experience. At the group level, Chris Mottershead, Colin McKinlay and Nishma Robb bring outstanding capabilities in financial discipline, yield management, customer insight, client relationship management and marketing execution. At subsidiary level, each online agency and specialist tour operator company has a high calibre managing director who fully understands his or her client base and has a passion for delivering outstanding customer experiences.

The central team is very lean, and, after agreeing operational improvements, control frameworks and financial targets, they allow the subsidiary management teams to operate with relative autonomy. Local management can access the central team’s expertise as needed. This operating model is compelling, and is appealing to other niche tour operators keen to take part in more rapid growth. As a result, the possibilities for further acquisitions appear almost endless, both in the UK and Canada, and also potentially in continental Europe.