Roy Thomson. Photo: PA

The world’s largest tourism and leisure group is going to retire one of Britain’s best-known travel brands to use a single name to promote its holidays.

The Thomson name, which dates back to 1965, will be ditched along with First Choice as part of a transition by TUI Group expected to take up to three years.

Thomson and First Choice catered for 5.2 million holidaymakers last year, with the Canary Islands, Balearic Islands and Greece the most popular destinations.

The consolidation behind the TUI brand comes after TUI Travel in the UK merged with its German parent company TUI AG to create a business with more than 300 hotels, 136 planes and 1,800 shops across Europe selling holidays to 30 million customers in 180 countries.

Joint chief executive Peter Long said the firm would start phasing out other European regional brands in the Netherlands and France before moving on to First Choice and Thomson as the last brands to go.

He said: “These will be the last to be rebranded because of their size. It will give us time to learn as we go. The move is aimed at strengthening our position in our markets.”

Last week TUI Group said it narrowed half-year losses, adding that it was putting its UK hotel booking website LateRooms up for sale.

It said it planned to exit the online hotels finder, founded in Salford in 1999, by the end of financial year without giving further details.

The group’s losses narrowed to €272.6 million in the six months to the end of March, from €341.4 million a year ago, in its traditionally weaker winter period.

It said winter sales were one per cent up compared with a year ago, with strong bookings in the UK, Germany and the Benelux countries. TUI said it was pleased with current trading, with its summer holidays 59 per cent sold, in line with last year.

Bookings are two per cent up on a year ago, with average selling prices across key markets up one per cent, with the UK and Benelux countries trading well.

The group reiterated it was on track to grow underlying profits by between 10 and 15 per cent this year.

The move is aimed at strengthening our position in our markets

Yet the eventual disappearance of the Thomson brand will mark the end of a name that has been synonymous with British package holidays for a half a century.

It was in 1965 that Canadian-born media chief Roy Thomson branched out from newspapers to travel by starting Thomson Travel.

Thomas Cook had begun tours as far back as 1841 and Russian emigre Vladimir Raitz had been seen as the pioneer of the package holiday when he started Horizon Holidays in 1949.

But Thomson’s entry into the market came at exactly the right time. Emerging after years of post-war austerity, Britons had enough money and confidence to switch holiday habits from Blackpool and Bognor to Benidorm and Barcelona.

The TUI AG logo in Hanover. Photo: Reuters

To start with, Thomson’s aims were modest, with tours concentrating on the emerging, and cheap, resorts in the Mediterranean.

The company’s first tour was a 13-day trip from Manchester to Palma in Majorca costing 41 guineas. Prices soon plunged and, using its charter airline Britannia Thomson, soon established itself as a leading light in the package holiday market.

Profits continued until the mid-1970s when intense competition and the downturn in the British economy caused a slowdown.

In 1974, Court Line – parent company of Horizon and of Thomson’s big rival Clarksons – collapsed, letting Thomson pick up the pieces.

Two years earlier Thomson had acquired travel agent giant Lunn Poly and by the 1980s Thomas had become the holiday company market leader, selling more than three million package holidays a year.

By this time the company offered far more than a couple of weeks on the Costas, having expanded into a range of tours.

Thomson’s big rival through the 1980s was Intasun but in March 1991 its parent company International Leisure Group went bust.

These were still the days when huge excitement accompanied the publication of the following summer’s holiday brochures.

In May 1998 Thomson Travel Group was floated on the stock exchange and executives also had to contend with the success of rival holiday company Airtours.

In 2000, Thomson Travel Group was acquired by German conglomerate Preussag, which was renamed TUI in July 2002.

Thomson Travel became TUI UK but the names Thomson Holidays, Thomson Ski and Thomson Lakes carried on.