HoT grows Australian arm

Christchurch's House of Travel (HoT) has been spending in Australia - planning to replicate the size of its New Zealand business across the Tasman by 2012.

The travel firm has built its Kiwi business to 1100 staff and wants to replicate that power across the ditch. HoT already had an Australian executive team in place, founder Chris Paulsen said.

"Our plan is that we want to (match) the size of House of Travel in New Zealand in Australia within five years," he said. HoT expects turnover of about $800 million in the financial year ending this month, and more than $1 billion in the 2008 year, boosted by last week's purchase of Sydney's TravelManagers.

TravelManagers specialises in organising corporate travel for small-to-medium enterprises, but also works in the leisure sector.

HoT first moved into Australia nine years ago, buying a Melbourne retail outlet under the Adventure Travel brand. Its next purchase was of wholesaler Fiji and Pacific Specialist Holidays (FPSH) -- which was set up using a call centre rather than a bricks-and-mortar approach to take products into the retail environment.

HoT was taking on extra FPSH staff to offer travel packages to countries outside the Pacific.

The multimillion-dollar TravelManagers acquisition "would take the House of Travel Group's turnover to well in excess of $NZ1 billion and in excess of 1350 employees between New Zealand and Australia," Paulsen said.

HoT was also planning a further Australian foray, hoping to make an announcement over another business next year.

For Australia an executive team, including chief executive Joe Araullo (former Qantas and Harvey's Choice), a finance director, an information technology director and retail general manager had been appointed. Australian Barry Mayo - previously chief executive with Harvey World Travel - was appointed to the HoT board more than a year ago with the sole purpose of driving the expansion into Australia.

"Getting Barry on board was crucial. He is respected in all aspects of the industry from airlines, wholesale and retail," Paulsen said.

The TravelManagers model - which was based on about 70 consultants working either from home or in an office, much like a broker - would benefit from HoT's technical support. TravelManagers also had retail outlets in each Australian state.

"The systems are very basic. We can certainly add a lot to the way that the consultants operate - add our science to it. The consultants have a specific clientele and we provide them with the technology, the buying power, the access to products and so on," Paulsen said.

- © Fairfax NZ News