Flight Centre

Flight Centre Travel Group

Type	Public (ASX: FLT)
Industry	Travel
Founded	1982; 43 years ago
Headquarters	Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Area served	Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Hong Kong, Singapore, India and China
Key people	Graham 'Skroo' Turner (Managing Director)
Revenue	A$2.36 billion (2015)
Profit	A$257.0 million (2015)
Number of employees	approx 18,500 (2015)
Website	flightcentre.com

Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) is an Australian-based international travel company and the largest retail travel outlet in Australia. Its global operations include stores in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India, China, Hong Kong, Mexico, Ireland, Singapore, the UAE and South Africa. The company is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX:FLT) with an annual total turnover of $17 billion as at June 2015. It has more than 2,500 stores in the 12 equity countries with over 18,500 staff globally. FCTG operates many specialist brands, including FCM Travel Solutions, Corporate Traveller, Campus Travel, CiEvents, Stage & Screen Travel Services, Student Flights, Escape Travel, Cruiseabout, Quickbeds, Liberty Travel, GoGo Worldwide Vacations & Worldwide Traveler. It has licensee arrangements in a further 80 countries under its FCM corporate brand.

History

File:Couple Walking into Flight Centre Store in Manchester, UK.JPG

A couple walk into a Flight Centre store in Manchester, United Kingdom.

File:FlightCentreMarkville.jpg

Flight Centre store in North America

Co-founded by Graham Turner and Geoff Harris in 1981, the first Flight Centre Australia store opening in Sydney in 1982 with assistance from Bill James. Bill now runs Flight Centre Foundation and sits on the board for the Kokoda Track Foundation Turner and James had previously run a successful budget bus trip company in Europe called Topdeck.

By 1990, Flight Centre had opened stores in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Expansion slowed with the onset of the Gulf War, which closed several overseas offices. However, it picked up again with a move to South Africa in 1994 and Canada in early 1995, while a return to the United Kingdom was made later that year. United States operations recommenced in late 1999, with the company expanding its American operations with the purchase of Liberty Travel in 2008, Bannockburn Travel Management and Garber Travel.

External links

• http://www.fctgl.com/sites/fctgl.com/files/150918%20FY15%20FLT%20Annual%20Report.pdf
• Pip Coates, 'To Have And To Hold: Geoff Harris. Worth: $975 million. Rank: 40', The Australian Financial Review Magazine, July 2014, p. 22
• http://www.kokodatrackfoundation.org/board-of-directors.aspx
• André Sammartino (2007), 'Retail’, in Dick, H. & Merrett, D. (eds.), The Internationalisation Strategies of Small-Country Firms: The Australian Experience of Globalisation, Edward Elgar: Cheltenham, UK, pp.175–194.