Ebookers to halve retail presence

In addition to announcing its first pre-tax profits, ebookers is closing nine retail outlets in Europe, but says it is not planning to migrate to 100% online. Chief operating officer, Nigel Addison Smith told TravelMole: “As the travel industry increasingly goes online, it tips the retails outlets into the negative.” However, not all outlets are performing badly. According to Mr Addison Smith, the outlet opened by ebookers at Heathrow last autumn is doing very well. He claims that it made an entire year’s profit during the weekend of the BA ground staff strikes. Details of the nine shops to be closed will be announced in about six weeks. Following restructuring of the organisation, redundancies are expected to be announced on the same day. The online agent has about 20 outlets around Europe from its early days as flightbookers, which was a retail and telesales business, and from the outlets acquired in the purchase of Travelbag. Mr Addison Smith says ebookers will continue to sell to the public through whichever channel they choose. At the moment 34% of sales are completed through the web. The lion’s share is web originated phone bookings, that account for 45% of bookings. Report by Ginny McGrath