Pentravel is the only national travel retailer in South Africa that sells leisure and holiday travel exclusively. There is no corporate travel division. It is also one of the oldest travel businesses in the country, founded in 1983, and is the only national travel agency whose head office is based in KwaZulu-Natal. Specialising in leisure travel means that Pentravel deals with most customers on a one-on-one basis, so the sales shops are located in the large shopping centres in South Africa. Pentravel is a well-known name in the big shopping malls of Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town and most recently the new Garden Route Shopping Centre. There are currently 20 travel sales shops, all offering personal service and better value on airfares, tours, cruises, car hire and other travel services. Pentravel sells all types of airfares - local, regional and international - but leads the way in its own special holiday airfares that combine airfares and hotel accommodation, car hire or touring for not much more than the airfare alone. Pentravel also has a programme of fully escorted group tours to Europe, the USA, the Far East and Australia which have been popular since 1990. Pentravel also provides foreign exchange, travel insurance and visa services. Staff are trained and expected to do everything possible to give customers exactly what they need, rather than a price-based service only. A bit of history ... Pentravel was founded in 1983. The name is derived from an earlier attempt to call the company "Penn Travel". When the registrar of companies refused this, the two words were combined to form "Pentravel". In 1999 Pentravel became part of the Cullinan group, a public company that also holds Thompsons Tours, the well-known wholesale travel business. Cullinan majority shareholders are the overseas Travel Corporation group, operators of Trafalgar, Insight and Contiki coach tours. The first Pentravel sales shop opened in Durban early in 1983, in Musgrave Road. From the beginning it was decided to concentrate on leisure travel and not corporate business. The company expanded at a steady pace - Durban, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Pretoria. At first, the sales shops were located in high streets, in city centres, because it was thought that the rentals in shopping malls were too high. The early Pentravels were typical travel agencies of the day - an office environment with blinds on the windows and airline posters on the walls. In those days, the 1980s, there was little or no travel advertising because most airfares were the same, regardless of which airline was flown. The governments of the different countries owned airlines so there was no pricing advantage - and airfares were controlled rigidly. Discounting was unheard of. Pentravel created a competitive advantage by working closely with an airline called Luxavia that operated to Luxembourg, in Europe, at fares that were lower than other airlines. This was because it was a privately owned airline. This small advantage enabled Pentravel to advertise lower fares to Europe and create new business that other travel agents weren't really interested in. In addition, Pentravel promoted coach tours, camping tours for young people, cruises and inexpensive hotel accommodation. The advertising and product mix worked - at that time very few travel agencies advertised at all. In 1988, the winds of change saw the gradual deregulation of airfares. It became possible to sell airfares at differing prices and it therefore became possible to advertise competitively. Pentravel made a critical decision. It was decided to focus on a single airline in an attempt to get special prices from that airline and British Airways was approached. In 1990, Pentravel launched the first discounted airfares on British Airways, the first time in South Africa that it was possible to buy an airfare on British Airways cheaper that from the airline itself. The Pentravel marketing focus turned to the UK and Europe, the USA and Australia. Pentravel concentrated on providing good quality travel services at competitive prices, but there was no attempt to become a "discount" travel agency. In 1992, Pentravel became the first travel agency to market a 5-day package to London which, up until that time, had been a destination considered a major journey requiring at least a two or three week stay. The success of this promotion opened the doors for many new value-added packages to a number of destinations and changed many of the patterns of South African leisure travel. Another major change in the travel industry in 1990 was the introduction of Computerised Reservations Services (CRSs), huge systems provided by specialised Information Technology companies, that replaced the airlines' own booking systems. Whilst most of the industry chose the SAA-sponsored Galileo, Pentravel chose a competing system called Worldspan and became its first client in South Africa. Worldspan, in appreciation of this, helped Pentravel build its own WAN (Wide Area Network), enabling Pentravel to create its own internal electronic information system. Pentravel leaped ahead in the creation of value-priced airfares and travel products aimed at the leisure market - mainly on British Airways, although other airlines were also used. This advantage lead to expansion of the company into other cities and, to support this, extensive advertising in the press at a time when there was little other travel advertising and no travel supplements at all. When the group reached a total of six branches, it became clear that a form of central control and distribution was needed. A unit called Central Services was formed in Durban, at the Head Office, and this unit provided the branches with Accounting, Operational, Marketing, Human Resources and Information Technology services in return for a management fee. In this way, Pentravel ran, and still does, rather like a franchise operation. In 1992, it was also realised that the travel business was really about providing information, that information distribution to the branches was critical to remain competitive and ensure efficiency. An electronic distribution system was built, with assistance from Worldspan, across which was sent information on airfares and other rates, so that every Pentravel consultant could have information at her fingertips - in real time. In the meantime, airfares were becoming more deregulated and other travel agencies were beginning to become more competitive in their marketing of leisure travel products - especially airfares. Advertising in the newspapers began to grow and Pentravel began to lose some of its advantage. Other travel agencies began to market cheap airfares on a large scale. In 1995, Flight Centre, the large Australian discount travel chain, approached Pentravel with a view towards partnership in South Africa and this seemed the ideal opportunity to get into the discount travel business without affecting the traditional Pentravel style. Flight Centre South Africa opened that year and for a short while, Pentravel had an interest in both value-added and discount travel marketing. The relationship with Flight Centre was amicably discontinued some time later and Pentravel concentrated more on its specialised type of leisure travel - well priced, value added products. But one spin-off of the relationship with Flight Centre was the realisation that retail travel agencies could operate successfully in shopping malls and do it in purpose-designed, properly shopfitted sales offices. Pentravel entered a new era. A special interior design and branding was created for the sales shops and the process began of moving the Pentravel branches from the high streets into the major shopping malls. It was realised that the shopping malls were the new high streets of South Africa and that this was where the future of personalised retail shopping lay. To be able to provide its customers with instant information and its travel consultants with more sales power, Pentravel built a more advanced computerised airfares database, called PANDA, and provided an extensive range of special airfares in a more user friendly and efficient way to the branches. This was later enhanced by the development of more modules, permitting advanced distribution of advertising information, land arrangement tariffs, sales statistics, daily updates and training programmes within a comprehensive system called TRAINS which is today the backbone of Pentravel's information distribution. Pentravel presently has a total of 20 sales shops, in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Port Elizabeth, the Garden Route and Cape Town. The current Pentravel focus on value and service at the point of sale, from easily accessible sales shops in the major centres, remains unchanged and will continue. Today, Pentravel operates in an environment that is heavily competitive and is undergoing significant change. The industry is dominated by a number of large groups, most of them publicly owned, including the Cullinan group. Airlines and other travel suppliers are reducing commissions paid to travel agents in an effort to cut their distribution costs. This means that Pentravel has to concentrate even more as a specialised distributor and seller of quality leisure travel products with a focus on preferred suppliers with whom it has an advantageous relationship. Fortunately, this type of operational focus is not new to Pentravel and the company is well equipped to meet the challenge. The ongoing business philosophy is to give customers even better service and add more value to the travel products. This is where Pentravel shines - the best place to buy a top-class, quality travel product with better value and service.