Travel Leaders Group Aims to Accelerate UK Growth After Thomas Cook Collapse
Photo Credit: Barrhead Travel staff. the company was bought by Travel Leaders Group in 2018. Barrhead Travel / Malcolm Cochrane
Skift Take
With one of the biggest names in UK travel exiting the market, there's space for other travel firms to pick up some of the travel demand. It's not going to be easy with plenty of Brexit uncertainty in the market as well as lots of competition.
Thomas Cook’s exit from the UK market has left a pretty big gap to fill ahead of the peak post-Christmas travel booking period.
A number of brands are looking to fill the void, including the Travel Leaders Group-owned Barrhead Travel.
The travel agency chain started off in a suburb of Glasgow, Scotland and has expanded over the years to other parts of the UK. With Thomas Cook out of the way, the CEO of Barrhead's parent company believes the time is right to “turn the dial up on our expansion.”
To fuel the growth, Barrhead has brought in ex-Thomas Cook staff, including the former head of its UK business, with an ambition to add up to 100 more stores to its existing network of 76.
“With Barrhead we always had organic expansion plans. I think all that’s changed post Thomas Cook is we've gone orders of magnitude higher on our expansion, while still being prudent ab
