Club 18-30 holidays go out with a bang with final trip to Spain before being axed

IT’S the end of an era as the last ever Club 18-30 holidaymakers will travel from the UK to Spain in just a few days time.
As travel giant Thomas Cook axes the brand the revellers will enjoy a three-night all-inclusive holiday at the BH Mallorca Hotel in Magaluf.
The final flight will leave Manchester on October 27 and is already sold out.
The Club 18-30 holiday once promised sun, sea and lots of booze away from the watchful eye of parents.
But in recent years sales have dwindled, even though the permitted age range was widened from 17 to 35.
The company 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.
In 1995, the company’s billboard advertising ruffled feathers with the Advertising Standards Agency, being the second most complained-about firm of that year.
The ads, designed by Saatchi & Saatchi included 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.”
But tour operator chief Ingo Burmester said: “We are increasingly focused on our core own-brand hotel portfolio and feel that the Club 18-30 brand no longer fits in with our wider programme.”
“Having taken the summer to explore our options we have, in the absence of a viable alternative that makes sense for Thomas Cook or the brand, decided that Club 18-30 will close at the end of this season.”
The tour operator now offers younger travellers the chance to “escape the ordinary” with its more up-market ‘Cook’s Club’ offering a “new generation of hotels for a new generation of travellers” with “a melting pot of culture, textures and flavours that creates a casually cool paradise where everyone is welcome.”
Thomas Cook say: “Times have changed. The modern-day wanderer craves more, and we think it’s high time to offer something extraordinary.”
The company said the small number of permanent Thomas Cook staff working on the Club 18-30 brand would be offered alternative roles, while its reps were employed on seasonal contracts and could apply for other work next year.