Virgin Holidays Limited, trading as Virgin Atlantic Holidays, is a company within the

Virgin Group Virgin Group Ltd. is a British multinational venture capital conglomerate founded by Richard Branson and Nik Powell in February 1970. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by the Companies House, who class it as a holding c ...

that offers holidays worldwide with destinations including the US and Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, the Indian Ocean and the Far East. In addition, the company has an established ski program and a specialist cruise division called "Virgin Holidays Cruises". The company was formed in 1985, a year after the successful launch of

Virgin Atlantic Virgin Atlantic, a trading name of Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited and Virgin Atlantic International Limited, is a British airline with its head office in Crawley, England. The airline was established in 1984 as British Atlantic Airways, and w ...

in June 1984. Initially selling seats on Virgin Atlantic routes to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

and

Orlando Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures rele ...

the company has grown to become one of the largest and most successful long-haul scheduled tour operators in the UK. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, it was announced on 5 May 2020 that Virgin Holidays would be rebranded as Virgin Atlantic Holidays. The full rebrand took place in 2022.

Operations

Virgin Holidays' headquarters are in Crawley, England. Seven other offices are located in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and the

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. In September 2008 Virgin Holidays launched a partnership with Herbert Ypma'
HIP Hotels
to create Virgin Holidays + HIP Hotels, a bespoke tour operator providing holidays to luxury and boutique hotels around the world. This partnership has now ended and HIP Hotels has since been acquired by a private equity firm. On 18 December 2008 Virgin Holidays acquired the assets and brand name of

Travel City Direct Travel City Direct was a brand owned by Virgin Holidays. It was previously the trading name of the Really Great Holiday Company PLC, a British holiday company based in Crawley (close to London Gatwick Airport), specialising in holidays to the Un ...

from XL Leisure Group, which collapsed in September 2008. Travel City Direct has now been merged into the Virgin Holidays brand. Nearly a year later, on 15 December 2009, Virgin Holidays announced that it had bought the small independent tour operator, Bales Worldwide. Virgin Holidays has a network of retail concessions throughout the UK in

Next Next may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Next'' (1990 film), an animated short about William Shakespeare * ''Next'' (2007 film), a sci-fi film starring Nicolas Cage * '' Next: A Primer on Urban Painting'', a 2005 documentary film Lit ...

. These are supplemented by several standalone shops. In 2015 Virgin Holidays left their long standing home at The Galleria and moved to Aeronautics House close to Virgin Atlantic. Initially announced as a temporary move whilst the Galleria was refurbished it was later announced that Virgin Holidays would move into a newly built building, the Leonardo Building, with Virgin Atlantic. In November 2019, Virgin Holidays established Orville Richard Burrell (

Shaggy Shaggy may refer to: People *Shaggy (musician) (born 1968), Jamaican American reggae rapper and singer * Shaggy 2 Dope, half of the hip hop, horrorcore band Insane Clown Posse * Shaggy Flores (born 1973), Nuyorican poet, writer and African diaspor ...

) as their Chief Caribbean Officer.

Environmental research

On 21 September 2006,

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields. Branson expressed ...

announced that all profits the Virgin Group receives from Virgin Holidays would be ploughed into research and investment to develop

sustainable Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livin ...

sources of

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat a ...

. He also committed the profits from Virgin Atlantic and

Virgin Rail Group Virgin Rail Group was formed by the Virgin Group to bid for rail franchises in the United Kingdom during the privatisation of British Rail in the late 1990s. United Kingdom operations Origins Virgin bid for a number of franchises, includ ...

, which was estimated to be $3bn over the next 10 years. At the time he said, "Our generation has inherited an incredibly beautiful world from our parents and they from their parents, it is in our hands whether our children and their children inherit the same world."

References

External links

*
Virgin Holidays + HIP HotelsVirgin Holidays CruisesTravel City DirectHIP Hotels
{{Virgin Group H Travel and holiday companies of the United Kingdom Transport companies established in 1985 Companies based in Crawley British companies established in 1985