Tourico Holidays and GTA brands axed

Tourico Holidays and GTA are to disappear over the next few months following their acquisition last year by Palma-based bed bank Hotelbeds.

The company announced this morning that both brands would be consolidated under a new, refreshed Hotelbeds brand.

In future, both Hotelbeds Group and its commercial bed bank brand Hotelbeds will be branded simply as Hotelbeds.

The group said this ‘further reinforces its core focus and position as the world’s leading bed bank’ following the sale earlier this year of its destination management division.

It said the new brand identity will be gradually rolled out across all of its combined operations over the next few weeks and months, phasing out the GTA and Tourico Holidays brands.

Additionally, the company has renamed its ancillary product line, ‘Beyond the Bed’. This includes the sourcing and distribution of transfers, activities, tickets, theme parks, car hire, travel insurance and specialist tours.

Executive chairman Joan Vila said: "Today’s announcement underlines our commitment and core focus to continue building our position as the world’s leading bed bank.

"Both our Group and our main commercial brand will both be known from now on under one simple name, Hotelbeds.

"The launch of a bold, refreshed identity for Hotelbeds under which we are combining the operations of Hotelbeds, GTA and Tourico Holidays, forms part of our clear strategy and roadmap to combine these top three leading players into one company and redefine the travel distribution landscape for the benefit of our partners.

"Much progress has already been made to integrate the three businesses at a commercial, operational and technological level, with cross-selling and technological solutions already in place.

"As we work our way through the final stages of the integration, we are in continual contact with all our partners to explain how these changes are benefiting them. In the meantime, we remain focused on business-as-usual and you’ll notice the brand changes mentioned today rolling out gradually over the coming weeks and months."

Hotelbeds said it had carried out extensive consultation with its partners before deciding on the move.

As a result of the integration of Tourico Holidays and GTA into Hotelbeds last year, the combined company now offers over 170,000 hotels, 24,000 transfers and 18,000 activities to over 60,000 intermediaries globally – including airlines, points redemption schemes, bricks-and-mortar travel agents, tour operators and online travel agencies.

This news also follows the decision announced in September to combine the various retail travel agent offerings of the company into one brand, Bedsonline. Already a process is underway to migrate the TravelBound, TravelCube and GTA retail customers onto the Bedsonline platform over the coming months and a new Bedsonline brand image has already been launched.
 

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