Blackpool-based Business Travel Plus has been bought by Co-operative Travel Management for an undisclosed sum.
Managing director Tony Stone will stay with the company on a consultancy basis until the end of this year.
Both agencies are members of Advantage Travel Centres and Stone is vice chairman of The Focus Partnership, a group of Advantage members with a large proportion of corporate business.
“My desire is to do something different. I’ve got lots of other interests and I’m involved with the theatre and aviation,” said Stone.
“I’m a qualified pilot but I never had the time to do that and since 1996 I have owned a semi-professional production company and I’d like to develop that too. I’m not going to go and sit in the garden!”
He said he would like to continue in his Focus Partnership role until his term finished at the end of the year.
“The main panel has the right to reconsider my position but I would like to stay as we’re in the middle of some exciting things.”
About the sale, he said: “The company was never advertised for sale, but I was looking for an organisation with the same sort of values that would respect and continue our good name.”
By Bev Fearis
