Travel Counsellors

Travel Counsellors is an independent global leisure and corporate travel business.

Founded in 1994, Travel Counsellors has operations in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa, Australia and the United Arab Emirates. Its global network of self-employed travel professionals work flexibly from home, offering bespoke travel solutions to its customers.

Travel Counsellors has achieved strong growth during the investment period and operating cash flow has been over 100% of profits across the investment period.

VALUE CREATION

Since investment, Equistone has supported the management team’s plans to accelerate growth in both the corporate and leisure travel space. This has been achieved by:

• Strengthening the management team with the appointment of a new CFO, IT director, digital/marketing director, sales director, HR director and non-executive chairman.
• Increasing its global network of homeworking travel professionals from 1,300 to over 1,700.
• Relocating its head office from Bolton to Trafford Quays, where its new state-of-the-art office includes training facilities for agents and space for its expanding number of support staff, who have grown to over 375 across the business.

As a result, Travel Counsellors’ turnover has increased from £416m to £594m forecast for the year ending October 2018 with profits forecast to be £20.7m. In 2017, Travel Counsellors also won Best Customer Focus Award at the UK National Business Awards.

THE EXIT

Equistone sold its Fund IV investment in Travel Counsellors to Vitruvian Partners.