Sales and profits at record levels for United Co-op Travel Group

Profitability also hit record levels, although the Society does not publish profit figures for its individual trading groups.Mike Greenacre, General Manager of United Co-op Travel Group, said: “United Co-op Travel Group has achieved record results across all of its trading divisions. Through a highly focused strategic programme that included acquisitions and carefully considered capital investment, particularly in technology, we have made exceptional progress in 2005. Technology has also helped us to reduce our cost base, ensuring our excellent set of results.”These record results are echoed by United Co-operatives as a whole. The Society has posted record sales of £2.093 billion, a 10.9 increase over last years £1.886 billion.United Co-op Travel Group’s highlights from the year include the uniting of its business travel operations to form Co-operative Travel Management - now the 15th largest business travel group in the UK.The Group’s travel homeworking business, Future Travel, became the largest division of the Group by turnover. As a reflection of this, a new management structure was introduced during the year to continue the successful growth through 2006.The fastest growing division year-on-year, The Freedom Travel Group, the consortium which provides Independent Travel Agents with the chance to benefit from the Society’s buying power, grew sales by 60 and became the third largest trading division within the Group.The Retail division has continued its capital investment programme throughout the year with a further eight branches refurbished. Five new branches were added to the estate, including the acquisition of Tony Iredale Travel. Foreign Exchange sales continued to be successful in a highly competitive market, increasing by 2 per cent.The Apollo Travel Direct call centre achieved exceptional growth in profitability, brought about by many significant strategic changes implemented during the previous 18 months. The main focus of these changes has been to reduce the business’s use of Teletext, as well as developing much greater use of its database.The Group’s specialist call centre for cruise holidays, Barrow Travel, experienced positive sales growth and record levels of profitability. During 2006, a major strategic initiative will be implemented, particularly focused on branding and achieving further strong growth in what continues to be a very positive market.The New Media division, which assumes responsibility for the major web developments across the Group, has had an exceptionally busy year with significant investment in new back-end technology and online booking on www.cooptravelshop.co.uk. This supporting role will be further enhanced in 2006, as each trading division sets out to achieve increased penetration of web bookings within its business mix.Mike Greenacre added “Our annual results for 2005 were very positive and brought about by the fantastic efforts and ingenuity of the whole of our team. Nevertheless the pace of change in our industry intensifies every day. We cannot rest on our laurels. Everyone knows that competition for business is unprecedented.“The use of our marketing resources and the return on sales will be equally important in keeping an even tighter control on our costs. We do, however, remain confident that 2006 will see more progress in terms of sales and profitability, subject always to there being no major global issues.”

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