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

Peterborough Peterborough ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in the City of Peterborough district in the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire, England. The city is north of London, on the River Nene. A ...

, 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 the founder of the travel agency Thomas Cook & Son. He was born into a poor family in Derbyshire and left school at the age of ten to start work as a gardener's boy. He served an appren ...

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 and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

to Magaluf 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 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 Sea, 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), Selva comarc ...

on the

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

. 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 The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange based in London, England. the total market value of all companies trading on the LSE stood at US$3.42 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Paul's Cath ...

(LSE) in 1980. In 1982, it was acquired by International Leisure Group (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 High-net-worth individual, individual. Management- and/or leveraged buyouts bec ...

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" (Buy-in Management Buyout) 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 charter airline in the United Kingdom formed in April 1961. It began with a single 104-seat Douglas DC-7#DC-7C, Douglas DC-7C aircraft lease, ...

. 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, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

( Sunny Beach) *

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

(

Corfu Corfu ( , ) or Kerkyra (, ) is a Greece, Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands; including its Greek islands, small satellite islands, it forms the margin of Greece's northwestern frontier. The island is part of the Corfu (regio ...

- Kavos) *

(

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

- Malia) *

(

Thassos Thasos or Thassos (, ''Thásos'') is a List of islands of Greece, Greek island in the North Aegean, North Aegean Sea. It is the northernmost major Greek island, and 12th largest by area. The island has an area of 380 km2 and a population of abo ...

) *

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

( Ayia Napa) *

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

(

Ibiza Ibiza (; ; ; #Names and pronunciation, see below) or Iviza is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea off the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. It is 150 kilometres (93 miles) from the city of Valencia. It is the third largest of th ...

Sant Antoni de Portmany Sant Antoni de Portmany (; ), or simply Sant Antoni (), is a town on the western coast of Ibiza, the second-largest town and municipality on the island. It is situated on Sant Antoni Bay on the west coast of the island, part of the Spain autono ...

) *

(

Majorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest of the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain, and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, seventh largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. The capital of the island, Palma, Majorca, Palma, i ...

- Magaluf) *

( Zante- Laganas) *

(

Gran Canaria Gran Canaria (, ; ), also Grand Canary Island, is the third-largest and second-most-populous island of the Canary Islands, a Spain, Spanish archipelago off the Atlantic coast of Northwest Africa. the island had a population of that constitut ...

- Playa del Ingles) *

Tenerife Tenerife ( ; ; formerly spelled ''Teneriffe'') is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands, an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Spain. With a land area of and a population of 965,575 inhabitants as of A ...

( Las Americas- Playa Honda)

Controversies

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

Saatchi & Saatchi Saatchi and 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 ...

, 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 programme '' Club Reps'', produced by STV Productions, 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, internet, telecommunications and mail, postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-rang ...

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