About Us

How Hays Travel began is legendary

In 1980, from the back of his mum’s babywear shop in Seaham County Durham, John Hays began selling holidays from a laminated dressing table.

From this humble beginning Hays Travel expanded steadily with shops opening up across the north-east. In 1990 the first Hays Travel call centre opened, and in 1995 the Hays Travel Independence Group was formed. Consortium members retain their own independence and branding, but benefit from Hays Travel’s buying power, technology, and back-office support. In 1997, the company diversified into homeworking, and today has three different options to suit those who prefer more flexibility in their lives.

In 2013 our retail estate expanded hugely with the acquisition of southern England’s largest independent travel agency, Bath Travel. Founded in 1924 and based in Bournemouth, Bath Travel had over 60 branches and 330 employees who joined the Hays Travel family. The acquisition represented a substantial growth in the company’s retail network, with Hays Travel branches now covering Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, and Sussex.

A year later, in 2014, Hays Travel took on its first franchise in the north-west of England, a 14-branch travel agency formerly known as Just Go. Rapid expansion meant that Hays Travel now had almost 49 across three different franchises.

Humble beginnings to high-street heroes

In 2019, John and Irene Hays became ‘Heroes of the high street’ when Hays Travel acquired a lease to operate the former Thomas Cook shops, providing re-employment opportunities to 2,500 staff who were made redundant following the collapse. Another year later in 2020, Hays Travel took over all 20 Tailor Made Travel shops as well as retaining around 100 employees.

The period from 2021 to 2022 was the most challenging in Hays Travel’s history, when it lost its beloved founder John Hays and weathered a global pandemic.

January 2023 saw the biggest trading day in Hays Travel’s history, when customers well and truly returned to travel. The positive start to the turn of year continued and Hays Travel returned to strategic acquisition, first acquiring 45 of franchisee Just Go branches in the North West of England in September, closely followed by a further 16 shops in South Wales when it acquired Travel House.

In addition to these acquisitions Hays Travel also opened new branches in Northern Ireland, Leeds Briggate area, and Gainsborough, and refurbished and relocated others as part of its retail and sustainability strategy.

Hays Travel is committed to ‘growing its own’ and has received many awards for its apprenticeship scheme, which attracts thousands of applicants every year to work in branches across the UK and in each department in its Sunderland Head Office. Apprentices study while earning a salary, gaining valuable on-the-job experience, and achieving a nationally recognised certificate, Hays Travel’s programme retained its good rating following an Ofsted inspection in 2023, with an ‘outstanding’ rating for outcomes for young people.

Today, Hays Travel has huge buying power and invests heavily in state-of-the-art technology. The company has an award-winning in-house training programme, won Large High Street Agency at the Agent Achievement Awards 2023, and is eleventh in the Top 100 Apprenticeship Employers list for 2023. Fully ABTA, ATOL and IATA bonded, it offers customers complete financial security, and its independent status means staff can provide impartial advice and an extensive range of travel opportunities.