Travel Counsellors acquires Holidaysplease

Travel Counsellors, the UK’s largest and fast-growing technology platform for travel entrepreneurs, are delighted to announce the acquisition of Holidaysplease, a network of specialist travel advisors.

Birmingham-based Holidaysplease is an award-winning travel company with approximately 100 home-working travel experts, 50 franchisees, and around 50 employees, and shares Travel Counsellors’ people led values and customer first business model.

The acquisition further supports Travel Counsellors’ focus on empowering and connecting nearly 2,000 travel professionals to run and scale their own businesses and provide an exceptional level of care to their customers by leveraging its personal, digital platform and global community.

The move will enable the Holidaysplease homeworker and franchisee communities to continue running their businesses, supported by its current Directors, wider leadership team and support staff. It will create opportunities for all to benefit from being part of the wider Travel Counsellors community and will see the businesses working collaboratively to build on their collective success, expertise, and knowledge.  

The deal marks Travel Counsellors’ first acquisition in its near 30-year history and comes hot off the heels of record trading months in both January and February 2023 with a total of more than $250m of sales.

Steve Byrne, CEO of Travel Counsellors, commented: “We are delighted to have acquired such a highly regarded and successful business, finding a company that is both culturally and strategically aligned to our people led values and relentless focus on customer care. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the entire Holidaysplease community; we are extremely excited at what this combination will mean for both businesses, our communities of travel experts, and our customers.

“We are incredibly passionate and focused on building a community of the very best travel entrepreneurs who are empowered by our platform to deliver exceptional customer experiences. Both businesses share incredibly similar cultures and this is clearly reflected in both brands’ excellent customer feedback and ratings, including consistently achieving 5-star ‘Excellent’ ratings on Trustpilot.

“Both businesses share outstanding momentum having each delivered exceptional growth in 2022 as well as record-breaking performances in January 2023. I am confident that this combination will only serve to strengthen both business’ momentum and offers a safe, secure, and exciting future for all within the community.”

Holly McCann, General Manager of Travel Counsellors UAE said: “This is really exciting news for all of us at Travel Counsellors and a further indication of the positive momentum in the business. The team and I look forward to welcoming everyone at Holidaysplease and to continuing to build a successful future in the industry that we love.”

The acquisition builds on the Travel Counsellors’ exceptional growth over recent periods highlighted by its record financial performance in 2022 when TTV on the Travel Counsellors platform increased to more than $850 million, representing an increase of more than 300 per cent against the prior year, and supporting the Company’s momentum as it accelerates towards generating over $1 billion of platform sales in FY23.