Hays Travel


Hays Travel Limited is an independent travel agent chain headquartered in Sunderland, England. It is the largest independent travel agent in the United Kingdom. As an independent agent, Hays Travel uses other tour operators in the United Kingdom to provide package holidays to customers.

History

Hays Travel was founded in 1980 by John Hays in Seaham, Durham, where he opened a small retail store behind his mother's clothing store. Hays Travel reached sales of over £1 billion in May 2018. The company's turnover increased by £42 million over 2017, and pre tax profit was up slightly to £10.1 million. At the time, the company had about 1,500 employees.

Expansion

On 9 October 2019, Hays Travel announced that it had purchased all stores of Thomas Cook Group in the United Kingdom, which were all assumed to be closed due to the travel agency entering liquidation during the previous month. The company took over the 550 retail locations across the United Kingdom; news reports at the time indicated that Hays would almost treble the number of existing stores and doubling its workforce.
By the end of November 2019, Hays stated that it would hire an extra 1,500 staff, in addition to its 2,330 who previously worked for Thomas Cook. The total number of Hays Travel employees would total 5,700 people, after the planned hirings. In March 2020, following the purchase of Thomas Cook, Hays Travel was named as one of the Top 100 Employers in the United Kingdom.