Signing up for a bigger share ...

By Graeme Kennedy

Friday 13th December 2002

Corporate travel management firm Signature Travel has been taken out of Andrew Bagnall's Gullivers Pacific Group and restructured as a stand-alone company with new shareholders and a goal to double its $50 million business within three years.

Mr Bagnall remains Signature's major stakeholder as chairman, followed by managing director and chief executive Darryll Park and Christchurch travel retailer Caroline Marks who is Christchurch general manager.

Former Auckland manager Tony Terrill becomes general manager for acquisitions and is replaced by former Mount Cook, Air New Zealand, Tourmasters and Sky City executive Graham Allan.

The restructure has been completed and Signature in its new form will officially begin on January 6.

Mr Park, a former Air New Zealand South Island manager, said the company would no longer be driven by Gullivers but an independent business with its own financial controller and IT specialist while maintaining strong relationships with the Bagnall group and its worldwide travel management partner Carlson Wagonlit.

"Andrew approached me last year and asked me to come in as a shareholder as he wanted to expand Signature into the South Island and restructure the operation," he said.

"He was then rationalising a lot of his brands such as Budget and Holiday Shoppe and saw an opportunity to grow Signature.

"I had a background in change management with Air New Zealand and more recently had been brought in to liquidate Canterbury Tourism which had not kept up with the times and was losing quite badly to Queenstown and Rotorua.

"When I was CEO of Christchurch and Canterbury Marketing Ltd from 1999, we won the best Regional Tourism Organisation award this year so I had achieved what I had started then it was time to get back into the real world."

Mr Park left the RTO in February and joined Mr Bagnall in May to examine all aspects of the business, merging Gullivers two Christchurch Holiday Shoppes and rebranding them as Signature.

"The restructure was driven by the need to get away from generic management and the regional management system and move some of our excellent skillsets into separate areas of the business," he said. "We needed to get serious about growth.

"We will expand our groups, events, conferences and incentives business and, although we are primarily a corporate firm, move more into the leisure sector as well business travellers go on holiday too and a lot of corporate providers forget that.

Mr Park said the company would also seek niche markets such as education, in which the Christchurch operation has a major account with the University of Canterbury.

"We will provide a one-stop travel shop, which will be a huge shift for Signature," he said.

Mr Bagnall bought the company, then the Diners Travel Club, in the early 1990s and developed it into a premium corporate business with offices in Auckland, Wellington and Hamilton

Mr Park said Signature had a three-year strategic plan and current performance indicated 20% growth in its first six months.

"A major driver will be our relationships with Gullivers and Carlson Wagonlit, which we need for global reach and positioning.

"Through them we will gain economies of scale and buying power.

"At a time when travel providers are merging and being taken over, we are standing alone and to succeed we need the Carlsons and Gullivers. We are about No 6 in the New Zealand market and although bigger is not necessarily better we do need economies of scale."

Mr Terrill said the new Signature had been set some "fairly significant" targets including doubling business through the three-year plan.

"There are plenty of opportunities for us to gain greater market share," he said.

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