KEY POINTS:
One of New Zealand's best known travel agency brands will disappear this weekend when Holiday Shoppe is rebranded Harvey World Travel.
The Holiday Shoppe name has been around for 32 years but will no longer exist as of Monday, with its 64 stores given new signage and shopfronts.
Holiday Shoppe franchise general manager Adrian Turner said the decision to drop the name had been made by the firm's 48 franchisees and was designed to better reflect the expertise of its staff as well as tapping into the international brand and buying power of Harvey World Travel.
"The franchisees have decided it's time to refresh the brand. We have a successful, well-known and well-loved local operation. Now we are bringing international resources into it."
The Harvey World Travel brand first appeared in New Zealand in 1992 but it was phased out by the then owners of Holiday Shoppe in 2006.
"There were only 22 branches and there wasn't sufficient scale to make it an effective brand at the time. With 64 we have the scale to bring it back and move it forward," Turner believes.
The Holiday Shoppe brand was initially owned by Gullivers Travel which floated on the New Zealand stock exchange in November 2004 but by September 2006 Australian travel company S8 had bought it out. Last year S8 was bought out by MFS.
But when the investment company hit financial trouble earlier this year it sold a 65 per cent stake of the Stella Group, its tourism business, to CVC Asia Pacific.
Stella Travel Service New Zealand managing director Stephen Humphreys said the move had brought financial stability back to the business.
The cost of rebranding will be footed by Stella although 20 of the franchise owners have also decided to spend their own money on doing up their stores at the same time. Humphreys would not reveal how much the rebrand will cost.
Holiday Shoppe is the fourth largest travel agency in New Zealand on a market share basis after Flight Centre, House of Travel and Air New Zealand Holidays.
Humphreys said its strength lay in repeat business and its focus was on family travel.
And despite the tougher economic climate, the pair are upbeat about the travel industry. Humphreys said: "There is underlying strength in this market that we are confident about."
HARVEY WORLD TRAVEL
* 64 stores.
* 48 owned by franchisees.
* 16 owned directly by Stella Travel Services which owns the overall brand.
* Part of the Stella Group which is 65 per cent owned by private equity firm CVC Asia Pacific and 35 per cent owned by Australian investment company Octaviar (formerly MFS).
