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 Companies House, who class it as a holding compa ...

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, West Sussex, England. The airline was established in 1984 as British Atlantic A ...

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

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

and

Orlando Orlando commonly refers to: * Orlando, Florida, a city in the United States Orlando may also refer to: People * Orlando (given name), a masculine name, includes a list of people with the name * Orlando (surname), includes a list of people wit ...

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 Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. 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 U ...

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, Inc. (later NeXT Computer, Inc. and NeXT Software, Inc.) was an American technology company headquartered in Redwood City, California that specialized in computer workstations for higher education and business markets, and later develope ...

. 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) as their Chief Caribbean Officer.

Virgin Holidays Cruises

Virgin Holidays Cruises is a company owned by

and is part of Virgin Holidays, headquartered in

Crawley Crawley () is a town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in West Sussex, England. It is south of London, north of Brighton and Hove, and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Crawley covers an area of and had a populat ...

. The company specialises in package deals with cruises provided by other cruise lines. The company was established in 2000 as Fast Track Holidays and was acquired by Virgin Holidays for an undisclosed sum in 2007. At the time of the Virgin takeover the company had 80 employees. The company name was officially changed to Virgin Holidays Cruises Limited on 15 June 2009.

Environmental research

On 21 September 2006,

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate who co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970, and controlled 5 companies remaining of once more than 400. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneu ...

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

sustainable Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

sources of

energy Energy () is the physical quantity, quantitative physical property, property that is transferred to a physical body, body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of Work (thermodynamics), work and in the form of heat and l ...

. He also committed the profits from Virgin Atlantic and

Virgin Rail Group Virgin Rail Group (WCT Group since 2021) is a British rail transport company that 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 ope ...

, 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