WA travel expert, Australian Travel Group boss Alan Dodson prefers to organise trips than take them Alan Dodson, Executive Chairman of Australian Travel Group. ALAN Dodson is a travel expert. But he'd rather organise trips to the world's best destinations for other people than take them himself. Travel was never for me. I still travel but not as much as I used to," Mr Dodson said. But the HolidayPlanet managing director is still going places in business, with the launch of Australian Travel Group - a merger of HolidayPlanet, Asia Escape Holidays and Motive Travel that creates WA's largest travel company. The development marks a significant milestone for Mr Dodson and his wife, Yvonne, who emigrated from the UK to Perth in 1988 to be closer to his family. "My parents had been here for a number of years and we would always come here on holiday to visit them," he said. "We came over and thought, "We wouldn't mind living here." It's a totally different lifestyle and there's a lot of opportunity if you work hard. There's more opportunity here than in the UK. Mr Dodson has been in the travel industry for 45 years. He started straight out of high school. "It caught my eye at 16 and I had friends working in the industry," he explains. I've always enjoyed dealing with people and looking to develop new products. It's a rapidly changing industry particularly with the development of online activities. Mr Dodson launched HolidayPlanet.com.au in 2001 - originally as Premier Travel Centre, but he changed the name in 2004 to be more "strategically catchy" online. A few years later, CruisePlanet.com.au was launched, followed by websites FlightPlanet and HotelPlanet. And early next year, the group expects to launch SeniorsPlanet.com.au to cater for the increasing over-55s market. "We see terrific growth in that market - 25 per cent of people who travelled overseas last year were over 55," Mr Dodson said. Also next year, CruisePlanet will launch a new online cruise engine to cater for a rapidly growing market, which accounts for 45 per cent of HolidayPlanet's business. "I'm a very big fan of cruising - that's one of the key things I like doing," Mr Dodson said. It offers great value for money and it caters for all different age groups. There used to be this adage that if you went on a cruise you're old. Whereas when you look at the growth of cruising over the last 10 years, it's been growing at 15 to 20 per cent a year. Alan Dodson (Executive Chairman of Australian Travel Group {ATG)), Michael Croy (Operations Director of ATG) and Mason Adams (Wholesaler Director of ATG). The last cruise the Dodsons went on was the Diamond Princess to New Zealand. "It was absolutely magnificent, all around the south of the island," he said. All your meals are included and entertainment. You unpack once and see a variety of destinations. The new Australian Travel Group will list on the stock exchange through a reverse takeover of mining company Red Gum Resources. This week, Red Gum launched a prospectus outlining details of the transaction, which will go to a shareholder vote at an extraordinary general meeting on November 27. Mr Dodson, who will become ATG executive chairman, said the amalgamation was a complex and time-consuming transaction. "It's taken almost a year to get to this stage," he said. All three travel companies have been operating on average around 14 years and are profitable and debt-free. From a synergistic point of view, we've brought together three very different types of businesses. Asia Escape, owned and operated by Mason Adams, has wholesale products to Asia, the Indian Ocean and extensive cruise programs sold through morenthan 3000 travel agencies across Australia. George Michalczyk's Motive Travel focuses on small to medium-sized corporate businesses and high-end, luxury sporting tours - particularly around the horse racing fraternity. "They are three of the largest in WA, which now creates WA's only listed ASX travel company," Mr Dodson said. While ATG is WA based and owned, he said the company saw "tremendous opportunity" for increasing revenue and profitability on the east coast of Australia. Already, 20 per cent of HolidayPlanet's business and 30 per cent of Asia Escape's business currently comes from other states. "We want to grow the east coast market, as 90 per cent of the Australian population is over there," Mr Dodson said. We employ 96 staff between the groups and envisage growth is going to come from the east coast. But Australian Travel Group's customer focus would be firmly planted on middle to high-income earners. "The expansion of our luxury program, which we launched 18 months ago, is a big part of the growth of the company," Mr Dodson said. And as time moves on we would like to look at other possible acquisitions. From a business point of view, we've got a very clear growth path and in the course of the next six to nine months will assess further acquisition possibilities. Originally published as Stay-at-home travel boss expands online