The leisure part of the business has been taken on by Kent firm CT Travel Group and will be rebranded as Pettitts Travel.
The Jersey agency, which is on the corner of Bath Street and Peter Street, will continue to provide leisure travel services to existing and new customers, with one staff member continuing and two former employees recruited from nearby Bellinghams Travel, which closed its Bath Street agency at the end of last year but is remaining open in St Brelade.
CT Travel Group has been in business for over 30 years and has a current turnover in excess of £30m. Pettitts Travel is the group’s leisure trading division and a well-established brand offering tailor-made journeys and private tours. The company was founded in 1988 and acquired by the CT Travel Group two years ago.
Mark Kempster, founder and chief executive of CT Travel Group, said: ‘We were presented with the opportunity to take over the ongoing leisure business of TravelSolutions and felt it was a good fit for our existing portfolio. We are currently administering all existing leisure bookings and are pleased to confirm that all clients’ holidays are safe. We look forward to building on Pettitts Travel’s programme with a new website and refreshed look.’
The corporate side of TravelSolutions has been acquired by a different company, Uniglobe Gemini Travel based in Middlesex, with the operations director and manager kept on as part of the deal.
TravelSolutions is the trading name of Channel Island Executive Travel Ltd, an owner managed company that grew out of Guernsey Conference Services and was taken over by Fred and Mandy Eulenkamp in the late 1980s.
Mr Eulenkamp said that having taken the decision to retire after ill health, voluntary liquidation was ‘the cleanest way’ of achieving this. He said that outstanding debts would be paid, but that this was in the hands of the accountants appointed to wind up the business, understood to be Grant Thornton.
Mrs Eulenkamp is staying on with the business in the role of head of Channel Islands.
Until recently TravelSolutions handled the travel arrangements for the States of Guernsey, which is now using HRG Worldwide, the current provider for the States of Jersey. A Guernsey spokesman said it was hoped that pan-island collaboration might be possible in future.
