WA bounces back into the black
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• Wallace Arnold Tours' revarnped management, headed by managing director John King, has been a major force in reviving Wallace Arnold's flagging financial performance.
The division turned in pretax profits of 2702,000 in 1987 compared with a loss of 241,000 in 1986. Wallace Arnold Tours forms the largest subsidiary within the group's Leisure & Holidays division, and since new managers were appointed to most key positions during 1985, company policy has been to concentrate on coach package holidays. Now 90% of Wallace Arnold's work is in that field and 10% in general coach services.
Malcolm Barr, group chairman of Barr & Wallace Arnold Trust, said Wallace Arnold Tours was concentrating on its traditional market of older travellers and British and Continental package holidays. "We will stay in that market and get the operation profitable and efficient before we start to look at other markets," he said.
Deregulation of coach service licensing, from the early 1980s, left Wallace Arnold in a very vulnerable position because of the number of licences it held. "Now general coaching is a small part of the business. We operate express services into Europe which are profitable, under the Euroways name, but there are no plans for expansion," said Barr.
Its 1987 results did well despite very low bookings for Continental tours, blamed by group finance director Ronnie Crowther on the low level of Sterling against European currencies, like the Deutschmark, during 1986 and 1987.