Thomson Travel Group
Owned by Preussag of Germany, Thomson sells around 5 million holidays a year. Their main websites are lunnpoly, just and thomson-holidays. Additionally, have a look at thefirstresort, through which they offer their own and the other major travel companies' holidays. Other Thomson sites worth a visit include simply-travel, crystal france and the 'deals' sites - late deals, sky deals and villa deals.
Airtours Group
Similar in size to Thomson, they sell around 5 million holidays a year. Behind the other major operators in their internet strategy, Airtours is currently rebranding itself as 'MyTravel' and focusing on one website - MyTravel. In addition they have the camping website eurosites.
Thomas Cook
Owned by C&N Touristic of Germany, Thomas Cook sell around 3.6 million holidays a year. After a re-branding exercise last year, their web site presence is now focused on thomascook, tcholidays and jmc (although this been partially reversed!). They also have websites for their brands neilson, club18-30 and style-holidays.
First Choice Group
Selling around 3.2 million holidays a year, their main websites are firstchoice (book online and save £20 per person) and travelchoice. In addition they also cover some travel niches with a number of specialist sites including fcski, unijet (scheduled flights and unijet holidays), air2000 (charter flights) and suncars (car hire - book online and save £5). In May 2002 they bought the adventure travel company exodus.
Cosmos Group
Much smaller that the other four, Cosmos sell around 1.2 million holidays a year and are part of Globus of Switzerland. Their main site is cosmos-holidays. They also sell flight only deals via avro.
Other larger tour operators
Outside the big 5 there are some great websites. virginholidays, trailfinders, kuoni, pageandmoy and travelcareonline are all excellent sites where you can research and buy your ideal holiday.
