Club 18-30 operator opens new office in city centre

UP Trips bosses have invested £500,000 on new facilities at the company's administrative headquarters in Locksview, Brighton Marina.

The new centre will operate alongside the company's existing customer services offices in Bradford, West Yorkshire, which also employs 20 people.

UP Trip said the new call centre would improve customer service while ensuring back-up should either operation suffer a power failure or computer breakdown.

The Thomas Cook subsidiary, which also runs flexibletrips.com and roomsandhotels.com, said it was responding to increased demand for its holiday packages.

Managing director Andy Tidy said: "We have received more than 150,000 calls already this year and with demand set to grow it is vital we have the capacity to maintain our customer service levels and ensure calls are answered quickly.

"The growth of dynamic packages - providing customers with flexible holidays - has driven this growth with 70 per cent of calls for the websites flexibletrips.com and roomsandhotels.com and 30 per cent for Club 18-30."

The new appointments are welcome respite for Brighton and Hove's service sector, which has been hit by job losses in recent months, including 250 redundancies at American Express.

Mr Tidy said he was impressed by the workforce in the city.

He said: "The quality of staff we have interviewed has been exceptional, we have been very impressed with their knowledge of travel and culture, which is vital as many customers increasingly want culture advice when booking a short break rather than just booking sun and beach holidays."

Since launching in 1965, Club 18-30 has become something of an institution taking millions of Brits on "fun-packed" holidays to the Mediterranean and further afield.

But the tour operator has also courted negative publicity with some of its more popular resorts - like the Greek island of Faliriki - becoming hotbeds of loutish behaviour.

Wednesday, August 10 2005