David Urquhart Coach Travel bought by trade-friendly Alfa Travel parent

The trade-friendly employee-owned Alfa Leisureplex Group’s brands include Alfa Travel and Leisureplex hotels.

Emma Russell, managing director of Alfa Leisureplex Group, said: "We are delighted to be able to announce that the ALG Group will be bringing the iconic David Urquhart name back and to be able to welcome some of the former team back as employee owners.

"David Urquhart Travel fits perfectly into our expansion plan, as its heartlands are in areas where Alfa Travel does not currently pick up.

"We have been welcoming David Urquhart customers to our Leisureplex hotels for many years, so we know that the customers enjoy our hotels."

Alfa Travel has also extended its reach in the south of England for 2021 with the introduction of a new departure region and interchange at South Mimms to complement its existing Reading operation.

This has seen the operator introduce lots of new pick up points to its programme, including additional new points across the Midlands, south and Yorkshire at the request of customers and travel agents.

ALG Group intends to take advantage of staycations post-Covid by focusing purely on the domestic UK and Irish coach holiday and self-drive break markets in 2021.

Russell added: “At the start of the year we had already announced to our employee owners that our strategy was to expand our southern England network and we took the decision to concentrate on the UK and Ireland from a destination perspective.

"I am very pleased that even in these unprecedented times we have been able to not only achieve this, but also grow our third party hotel partner relationships to support further expansion of our programme and to extend our geographical reach across the UK. We are also introducing a brand new range of weekend breaks in 2021."

Alfa Travel said it took the decision to refund customers from the outset of the pandemic and believes this has been instrumental in helping it retain and grow both direct and travel trade sales.

Additionally, all Alfa Travel products are bonded by Abta.

Russell continued: “Everyone at Alfa would like to extend their heartfelt thanks to all of our incredible travel agent partners for their support over the last few months.

"Our new 2021 Alfa Travel brochures will be arriving with agents shortly, with our low deposit offer of only £25 per person continuing to run until 31 October.

"While David Urquhart has always been recognised as direct sell brand, the group are keen to develop relationships with agents once the 2021 programme is on sale.”