VIRGIN TRAVELSTORE OPENS FIRST STORE IN ITS RETAIL CHAIN

Sir Richard Branson officially opened the Virgin Travelstore flagship retail outlet in London today surrounded by dozens of holidaymakers already dressed for the beach in swimsuits and bikinis. The London outlet is the first of a chain of stores nationwide. Virgin Travelstore intends to spend up to £10 million on its high street presence over the next two to three years. The first outlet, situated near Victoria Station, opened to the public a fortnight ago and has proved to be very popular in that time.

Sir Richard Branson, Chairman of Virgin, said;

“I am delighted to be opening the first of many Virgin Travelstore shops -our customers have told us for years that they want Virgin to sell travel services on the high street. The high street presence will complement our existing channels of distribution – the Internet, Teletext and a 200 strong call centre.

“The new store opened to the public on 4 June and has already attracted a lot of interest from customers with an average spend per head of over £600 and our original aims to make £3m over the coming year is being revised to closer to £5m. Our eventual aim is to repeat the success that Virgin Megastores has had on the high street.”

Peter Davies, Chairman of the Virgin Retail Travel Group said:

“The opening of the retail arm of Virgin Travelstore begins an exciting new chapter for the company, we plan to open many more stores around the country – including Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle - in the near future. With our new multi-channel approach we are confident that we can turn Virgin Travelstore into a £250m turnover business. We are currently looking into other innovative channels through which to distribute and should be able to announce news soon – so watch this space!”

The Victoria store is currently running a competition offering visitors to the shop the chance to win a host of prizes including romantic weekends for two in Paris, Travelstore vouchers and the chance to be entered into a prize draw for an Italjet scooter, courtesy of Virgin Bikes.

Notes:

Virgin Travelstore is an impartial retailer selling a huge range of travel products from flights, hotels and package holidays to car hire and insurance. Peter Davies, the managing director of Virgin Travelstore has over 20 years of experience in the travel business. He was formerly the chairman of well know high street travel provider World Wide Travel. World Wide Travel was acquired by Virgin eighteen months ago.

The first Virgin Travelstore outlet is near Victoria on 63 Buckingham Gate, SW1. Innovative and contemporary design throughout the store provides a whole new approach to high street travel retailing. Plasma screens in the windows replace traditional cards to provide up-to-the-minute details of the latest offers while instore technology allows customers to view every part of the booking process in a relaxed environment.