Sunny outlook for Club Travel

Sun-seekers have been beating the summer blues here with one travel agency confirming that early bookings for 2015 sun breaks were up 30% and helped drive revenue growth.

Club Travel is the largest independently owned travel agency in the country and director, Colman Burke said that the bad summer weather has had very little impact on business as people had already booked their sun breaks.

Mr Burke said that the early bookings were very strong in 2015, up over 30% “and there was very little availability left by the time July came around”.

He said: “Those who left it late this year ended up paying more with less choice of prime flight times and properties.”

Mr Burke was commenting on new accounts showing that operating profits at Club Travel increased marginally to €2.08m as revenues jumped 10% to €88m.

Mr Burke said the business is “very happy with last year’s performance” due to a number of factors.

They include Club Travel successfully regaining the contract to act as the Government’s travel agent while it also won new accounts including Twitter for European Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Tullow Oil.

Mr Burke said: “We saw strong growth from our existing corporate customer base. On the leisure side, our budget travel business grew nicely reflecting the general upturn in consumer spending.”

Club Travel is owned by one of the co-founders of Ryanair, Liam Lonergan and the cash-rich travel agency increased its cash pile to €40m last year and earned €825,888 in interest alone.

Dividends paid out last year total €811,052.

Payment to directors last year totalled €303,857.

According to the directors’ report, the directors “consider that profitability levels may reduce in the future, due to a combination of growth in generally online travel facilities for customers and failing interest rates on investments”.

Mr Burke said yesterday: “We are not on an acquisition trail but rather ready to look at opportunities if presented to us”.

Numbers employed increased by 30 or from 130 to 160 with another 30 employed in sister firm Abbey Travel.

Mr Burke said that operating profits did not increase at the same pace as revenues due to continued pressure on margins and service fees and increased customer service expectations.

Staff costs last year increased from €4.38m to €4.69m.