Club 18-30 was a holiday company working from its head office in

Peterborough Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...

, that provided holidays for people aged 18–30 in typical party island destinations. Club 18-30 was sold on to

Thomas Cook Thomas Cook (22 November 1808 – 18 July 1892) was an English businessman. He is best known for founding the travel agency Thomas Cook & Son. He was also one of the initial developers of the "package tour" including travel, accommodation ...

in 1998 and took around 45,000 guests each year. The average age of guests was 19, and one third of customers were travelling on holiday without their parents for the first time. On 8 October 2018, it was confirmed by Thomas Cook that the Club 18–30 brand would no longer continue after summer 2018. The last Club 18-30 holiday-makers travelled from

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

Magaluf Magaluf (, , ) is a major holiday resort on the Spanish island of Majorca, primarily catering to the British, Russian, Irish, German, and Scandinavian package holiday market. Magaluf is in the municipality of Calvià and is situated within a gro ...

on 27 October 2018 and returned on 30 October 2018.

History

Club 18-30 was set up in 1968 by the Horizon Group to offer

package holidays A package tour, package vacation, or package holiday comprises transport and accommodation advertised and sold together by a vendor known as a tour operator. Other services may be provided such as a rental car, activities or outings during the ho ...

targeted at young singles and couples to travel without families or children. The idea for Club 18-30 came from Paul Latchman. Initial promotion was low-key, and to maximise the use of cheap airfares, night flights were used. The first destination was

Lloret de Mar Lloret de Mar (; ) is a Mediterranean coastal town in Catalonia, Spain. It is south of Girona and northeast of Barcelona. With a population of 38,402 in 2021, it is the second largest town in the Selva comarca of Catalonia. Lloret de Mar attra ...

on the

Costa Brava The Costa Brava (, ; "Wild Coast" or "Rough Coast") is a coastal region of Catalonia in northeastern Spain. Whilst sources differ on the exact definition of the Costa Brava, it can be regarded as stretching from the town of Blanes, northeast o ...

. The Horizon Group only received modest success and sold the company on to a management buyout in 1973. During the 1970s, the popularity of Club 18-30 was increased through cut-price airfares. Advertising for the company promoted the idea of holidays with sexually-active and uninhibited, often alcohol-fuelled fellow holidaymakers, which would become Club 18-30's reputation. Despite its notorious image, the company was listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

in 1980. In 1982, it was acquired by

International Leisure Group International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

(ILG) and continued to grow and prosper. In 1991, ILG collapsed and was taken over as a

management buy-out A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management-, and/or leveraged buyout became noted phenomena of 1 ...

backed by venture capitalists County NatWest Ventures, Grosvenor Capital and Causeway Capital, in a transaction valued at £167,000. After being briefly rebranded as ''The Club'' due to regulatory rules precluding the use of the name for 3 years, it reverted to the original name in 1994. In 1995, the company was sold for around £9.75m as a part of a "bimbo" with various venture capitalists, including Royal Sun Alliance and others and incorporated with Sunset Holidays and the newly-formed airline Flying Colours. In 1998, Thomas Cook acquired Flying Colours for £57.5m. Club 18-30 was subsequently incorporated into Thomas Cook's JMC (John Mason Cook) brand of travel companies which included the operating brands Flying Colours, Sunworld, Sunset, Inspirations and

Caledonian Airways Caledonian Airways was a wholly private, independentindependent from government-owned corporations British charter airline formed in April 1961. It began with a single 104-seat Douglas DC-7C leased from the Belgian flag carrier Sabena.''Flyi ...

. In 2002, following a strategic review of the business, the management company UP Trips was formed to ensure that Club 18-30 retained its dominant position in the youth market by providing a dynamic package offering. However, by 2008, the UpTrips Management company dissolved, with Club 18-30 once more a key product within the Thomas Cook portfolio. From 2008 onwards, Club 18-30 continued as a part of Thomas Cook, specialising in the youth travel market. In May 2018, Thomas Cook announced that, due to the changing tastes of consumers and a new focus on the company's own brand portfolio, the future of Club 18-30 would be reviewed. On 8 October 2018 ,they confirmed that the brand would close, and that summer 2018 would be its last operating season. The last Club 18-30 guests flew home from the island of Zante on 27 September 2018. Club 18-30 had a smaller, lesser-known sister brand named Club Xtra, that offered holidays in party destinations without a Club 18-30 rep service or excursion programme. The last customers for Club Xtra travelled home at the end of October 2018.

Destinations

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...

(

Sunny Beach Slanchev Bryag ( bg, Слънчев бряг , en, Sunny Beach) is a seaside resort on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria, north of Burgas. Created in 1958 as a weekend getaway for Bulgarian families, Sunny Beach has become the largest tourist an ...

) *

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

(

Corfu Corfu (, ) or Kerkyra ( el, Κέρκυρα, Kérkyra, , ; ; la, Corcyra.) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the margin of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The isl ...

Kavos Kavos ( el, Κάβος) is the southernmost seaside village on the island of Corfu in Greece, in the municipal unit of Lefkimmi. Since the early post-war era, it has gained popularity as a resort heavily devoted to tourism and is popular with yo ...

) *

(

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...

- Malia) *

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...

(

Ayia Napa Ayia Napa ( el, Άγια Νάπα tr, Aya Napa, ), officially romanised Agia Napa, is a tourist resort at the far eastern end of the southern coast of Cyprus. Etymology The name Ayia Napa is derived from a Venetian-era monastery of the same ...

) *

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

(

Ibiza Ibiza (natively and officially in ca, Eivissa, ) is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea off the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. It is from the city of Valencia. It is the third largest of the Balearic Islands, in Spain. Its l ...

Sant Antoni de Portmany Sant Antoni de Portmany (, es, San Antonio Abad) or San Antonio is a town on the western coast of Ibiza. It is the second-largest town and municipality in Ibiza; an island described by ''Time Out'' magazine as "arguably the clubbing capital ...

) *

(

Majorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest island in the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean. The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Bal ...

) *

(

Zante Zakynthos (also spelled Zakinthos; el, Ζάκυνθος, Zákynthos ; it, Zacinto ) or Zante (, , ; el, Τζάντε, Tzánte ; from the Venetian form) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the third largest of the Ionian Islands. Za ...

Laganas Laganas ( el, Λαγανάς) is a village and a former municipality on the island of Zakynthos, Ionian Islands, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Zakynthos, of which it is a municipal unit. The munic ...

) *

( Gran Canaria-

Playa del Ingles Playa (plural playas) may refer to: Landforms * Endorheic basin, also known as a sink, alkali flat or sabkha, a desert basin with no outlet which periodically fills with water to form a temporary lake * Dry lake, often called a ''playa'' in the so ...

)

Controversies

In 1995, the company's billboard advertising was investigated by the Advertising Standards Agency as the second-most complained about advertising of the year. The adverts, designed by

Saatchi & Saatchi Saatchi & Saatchi is a British multinational communications and advertising agency network with 114 offices in 76 countries and over 6,500 staff. It was founded in 1970 and is currently headquartered in London. The parent company of the agency gr ...

, included the phrases "Beaver Espana", "Be up at the crack of Dawn... or Julie... or..." and "It's not all sex, sex, sex. There's a bit of sun and sea as well". The adverts were the subject of an activist graffiti campaign in Manchester and succeeded in gaining local and national media attention.

''Club Reps'' on ITV

Beginning in January 2002, the

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

programme ''

Club Reps ''Club Reps'' is a factual entertainment programme made for ITV by STV Studios (''then known as "SMG TV Productions"''). It ran from 2001 to 2004. The programme has been repeated on Sky Real Lives, Pick and STV local channels STV Edinburgh an ...

'', produced by

STV Productions STV Studios (previously STV Productions, SMG Productions, and originally known as Scottish Television Enterprises) is the television production arm of the STV Group plc. Headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland, and with an office in London, England, ...

, followed the life of a travel representative on Club 18-30 holidays. In 2005, Channel 5 aired the documentary ''Curse of Club 18-30'', produced by North One Television. Club 18-30 complained to

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...

over the documentary; Ofcom agreed that they had not been allowed to answer for themselves on the documentary, but the other allegations made were not unfair.

References

{{Authority control Companies based in Peterborough Transport companies established in 1970 Travel and holiday companies of the United Kingdom 1970 establishments in England History of the City of Bradford

History

Destinations

Controversies

Advertisements

''Club Reps'' on ITV

References