Thomson Travel Group
British travel agency, formerly known as Thomson's Holidays (1965-2017)
Thomson Travel Group plc was a business formed by the Thomson Corporation of Canada, when it was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1998. It was acquired by Preussag AG, an industrial and transport conglomerate, in 2000. The group continued until 2002 when it was renamed TUI Northern Europe Limited, a full subsidiary of TUI AG.
History
The company was created in 1965 when Thomson Corporation of Canada acquired four tour operators, Skytours, Riviera, Luxitours and Gaytours as well as the airline Britannia Airways, and named the combined business Thomson Travel.
In 1970, the business was re-launched as "Thomson Holidays" under the leadership of Bryan Llewellyn as managing director.
In 1972 Thomson acquired Lunn Poly, a small chain of agents which Thomson grew to become the largest chain of travel agents in the United Kingdom.
In 1981, Thomson Holidays were the first recorded users of Business-to-Business online shopping.
The business was floated on the London Stock Exchange with a valuation of £1.7 billion as Thomson Travel in May 1998.
In 2000, Thomson Travel was acquired by Preussag AG, an industrial and transport conglomerate. Although Preussag AG, which re-named as TUI AG in 2002, retained the Thomson brand for a while, it was retired completely in 2017.
Thomson Founders' Club
When Thomson Travel was floated in 1998, new shareholders were given membership in the "Thomson Founders' Club" which offered a 10% discount on Thomson holidays.
“Thomson Travel Group” enters the record as british travel agency, formerly known as Thomson's Holidays (1965-2017). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Thomson, Travel and Group can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7795876. VIAF identifies the subject as 315944767. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1998, 2000, 2002 and 1965.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomson Travel Group” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.