All sales staff to switch in major brand consolidation.
Flight Centre is set to embark on a wide-scale consolidation of its Australian retail operations, announcing plans to rebrand its Escape Travel and Cruiseabout stores as either Flight Centre or Travel Associates outlets.
In its first half results released this morning, Flight Centre has revealed record TTV of $10.16 billion, an increase of 8.7% on the same period last financial year, and an underlying pre-tax profit of $139.4 million, up 23.2%.
The profit surge has led Flight Centre to upgrade its guidance for the full year, saying it now expects its annual result to be about 13% higher than last financial year and within reach of the record $376.5 million underlying profit achieved during the 2014 financial year.
But having previously focussed on turning around loss-making businesses overseas, Flight Centre said today it had set its sights on growing market-share within the Australian leisure business.
This will include the merger of smaller brands to create three leisure “super networks” aimed at mass market (Flight Centre and BYO/Aunt Betty), premium (Travel Associates and Travel Partners) and youth (Student Flights/StudentUniverse).
It says all Escape Travel and Cruiseabout sales staff will switch to either Flight Centre or Travel Associates “to ensure the company’s overall sales force is maintained and to ensure a seamless transition for customers.”
More detail in today’s Travel Daily.