Direct Holidays reviews Creative ad account

Direct Holidays, the package holiday company owned by beleaguered MyTravel, is reviewing its £1.2m advertising account.

Direct Holidays, based in Glasgow, has used 1576 for the past five years for creative work and the agency will be invited to repitch. The pitch will be overseen by head of marketing Brian Wright, who says he intends to draw up a shortlist of four agencies.

The company appointed Media Vision to handle media planning and buying in December, replacing The Media Shop.

Direct Holidays was set up by entrepreneur John Boyle as a direct selling operation in 1992 and was bought for £81m by MyTravel in 1998, a price considered exorbitant at the time. It sells package holidays via the telephone, the internet and 27 retail outlets.

The company has never been branded under the MyTravel banner and has its own managing director and head of marketing. Former marketing director Robin Parry was promoted to marketing director of Airtours Holidays, MyTravel’s main holiday brand, in February last year (MW February 14, 2002).

MyTravel has announced a wave of redundancies worldwide, with up to 1,300 jobs being cut. The UK operation will see 700 job losses, with the bulk of redundancies coming from retail staff.

The company says there are no plans to axe any senior marketers at present.