Final, Formal Bye-Bye to Tourico and GTA Brands: In a major announcement that came out on Halloween day, the Hotelbeds Group announced that it was consolidating its family of brands into a single brand: Hotelbeds.
The action brings to a close the heretofore somewhat independent operations of GTA and Tourico Holidays—both were acquired early in 2017—as independent brands. It also means that Hotelbeds Group and its commercial bedbank brand, Hotelbeds, will operate simple as “Hotelbeds.”
The Palma de Mallorca-based company also used the occasion of its announcement to launch a refreshed “Hotelbeds” identity to help phase out the GTA and Tourico Holidays brands.
In addition, the company has decided to rename its ancillary product line, which Hotelbeds commercializes via its distribution channels, as “Beyond the Bed.” This includes the sourcing and distribution of transfers, activities, tickets, theme parks, car hire, travel insurance and specialist tours.
Now that all its players are wearing the same uniform, so to speak, it likely means that the internal organizational restructuring of management-level staff, along with the departure from the company of some of them, is over.
Said Joan Vilà, executive chairman, Hotelbeds, “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.”
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 travel selling intermediaries globally – including airlines, points redemption schemes, bricks-and-mortar travel agents, tour operators and online travel agencies.
The 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.
