On Monday (9 December), the company announced that founders – and Matthew’s parents – Gerry and Carol Pack had relinquished their remaining shares in the company, and would leave the business after 42 years.
The buyout saw the Packs sell their 12% stake to the management team’s investment vehicle Holiday Extras Investments Limited, while an increased majority of shares will now be held in an Employee Benefit Trust.
Holiday Extras has also raised its borrowing facility to £30 million, which Pack says it will propel the company’s AI investment – which has been a focus point for the past few years.
“In 2025, AI will be the core offering to both the travel agent and the core consumer,” Pack, who succeeded his father as the group’s chief executive in 2015, told TTG. “Agents will be interfacing with AI first and then Holiday Extras.”
For consumers this will mean a new version of the Holiday Extras app, meanwhile AI assistants will make bookings easier for agents.
“If agents want to extend the day of a parking booking, cancel one or change the name on a car registration, they should be able to do it much more quickly and easily in the coming year,” Pack says.
Holiday Extras is testing its new technology on consumers first before proposing it to the trade, while ramping up its product portfolio and expanding further into Europe with two new deals to be inked in the next couple of months.
“Once we have got the technology in a good state, we’ll take that back to the travel agents so they can more quickly and easily create a trip,” he added. “We’re doing all these things in consumer land so that we can bring them back to the trade in the future.”
