The Travel Corporation
The Travel Corporation stretches across 40 award-winning brands including Trafalgar, Contiki, Insight, Cullinan, Uniworld River Cruises, Red Carnation Hotels, and others, along with Bouchard Finlayson Vineyards. Collectively, TTC’s portfolio operates in over 70 countries worldwide, carrying over 2 million travellers in 2019. In 2020 TTC celebrated its 100th Anniversary.[1]
 | |
| Type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Travel and leisure |
| Founder | Stanley S. Tollman |
Key people | Stanley S. Tollman - Chairman Brett Tollman, Chief Executive Officer Gavin Tollman, President |
| Services | Tour operator |
| Owner | Tollman family |
Number of employees | 10,000 |
| Website | ttc |
Internationally, TTC has become one of the largest, family owned and run business in the world. The company is wholly owned by members of the Tollman family, four generations of which are actively involved with the business.[2] The company traces its history to a small hotel outside Cape Town, South Africa, in the early 1900s.[2]
In 2008 TTC’s not-for-profit foundation was founded, today known as the TreadRight Foundation, for international project activation (as of 2021 donating over US$ 2.5 million to sustainable tourism projects worldwide), and traveller inspiration to ‘make travel matter’. [3]
Brands
The company owns the following tour operators:
- AAT Kings (with its sub-brands Aussie Adventure and Inspiring Journeys)
- Brendan Vacations [sub-brand of Trafalgar Tours] https://www.trafalgar.com/en-us
- Busabout
- Contiki Tours
- CostSaver [sub-brand of Trafalgar Tours] https://www.trafalgar.com/en-us
- Evan Evans Tours
- Grand European Travel
- HAGGiS Adventures
- Insight Vacations
- Travel Corporation Asia
- Shamrocker Adventures
- Uniworld - operates river cruises across Europe, Asia and the Middle East on a number of rivers including the Rhine, Main, Danube, and the Seine River.
- Trafalgar Tours
- New Horizons
- Creative Holidays
- African Travel
- Lion World Tours
The company also owns Red Carnation Hotels, a luxury hotel group with hotels in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, South Africa, Guernsey and Switzerland. In August 2015, Ashford Castle in Ireland was voted the world's best hotel by Virtuoso Travel Week, and third best world hotel in July 2015 by Travel + Leisure magazine, US.[4][5]
The company also owns and operates transportation services in various locations. Transportation brands include AAT Kings and Atlas Reizen (based in The Netherlands).
Other holdings include the Old Town amusement park.
The company's philosophy is to keep the brands separate with their own identity, serving their own niche markets, rather than trying to merge them all and ending up with one brand without a distinct identity.[6]
Investments
The company is the largest shareholder of Cullinan Holdings Ltd, one of South Africa's oldest public companies, which owns household travel brands such as Thompsons Africa, Thompsons Holidays, Thompsons Touring & Safari, Hylton Ross Tours, Planet Africa, Gateway Tours, Pentravel as well as Marine businesses Manex and Central Boating. The company is also a significant shareholder in Wilderness Safaris.
References
- "The Travel Corporation: About".
- Gollan, Doug (October 14, 2016). "Meet The Biggest Travel Company You've Never Heard Of". Forbes.
- "TreadRight Foundation". TreadRight Foundation.
- Willits, R. Bryan (June 2016). "Ashford Castle Is Named the Best Hotel in the World". Irish America.
- Ó Conghaile, Pól (August 13, 2015). "Ashford Castle voted world's best hotel". Irish Independent.
- "Meet Brett Tollman from the South African family who own The Travel Corporation". Independent Online (South Africa). June 10, 2019.