QUEENSLAND accommodation and travel group S8 has joined forces with Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group to launch a new chain of specialist travel agencies across England.
The rapidly expanding Gold Coast-based firm announced yesterday it expects to have more than 100 of the stores open by the end of the year and 300 within two years.
S8 will initially use its recently acquired Harvey World Travel network, which opened 26 outlets in England about 12 months ago.
The first of the newly rebadged shops, trading as “Harvey World Travel, the travel professional for Virgin Holidays”, opened in Stafford in the north of England on Monday.
Another 80 franchised sites will follow, with the aim to have a “high street” presence in most major population centres. S8 chairwoman Jenny Hutson said Harvey World Travel’s operations in England had lost $2.6 million last financial year because it lacked adequate scale. She forecast that the new alliance would break even this year and be profitable next year.
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