Leisure Direction website sold to…Leisure Direction Travel
The website business of Leisure Direction has been sold to another company, with the very similar name of Leisure Direction Travel.
Administrators Menzies Corporate Restructuring confirmed today that the website has been sold to Leisure Direction Travel, and said this company has different owners and directors.
A Menzies spokeswoman said it has urged the new owners to make it clearer on the website that it is a totally different company.
But she said she could not disclose details of who was behind Leisure Direction Travel.
“Now that the business has been sold, Menzies is not in a position to comment further,” she said.
Bookings are now being taken through the Leisure Direction website – www.leisuredirection.co.uk – which is the same in style and design.
Leisure Direction was placed into administration last week with 18,000 forward bookings.
At that time, Menzies said although the company was profitable, it had “some accounting issue” last year.
A spokesman for ABTA said: “Leisure Direction Travel Ltd is not the same company and it is not an ABTA member.”
Leisure Direction was run by Alan Potts and employed 50 staff.
It was a registered ATOL holder and registered ABTA licence holder, trading under a number of names, including French Impressions, French Holiday Service, EuroDrive, Alliance Travel, The Travel Alliance, and Faresavers.
The company also operated The Travel Shop at Maidstone Motorway Service Area, at Junction 8 of the M20.
When the company was placed into administation last week, Leger Holidays took over short breaks and DisneyLand Paris forward bookings, which represents the bulk of the total.
Erna Low cacquired the operator’s forward ski holiday business and its database, accepting responsibility for almost 500 holidays in Leisure Direction’s 2008 ski programme.
By Bev Fearis
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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