Club 18-30: Prices soar for last-ever holiday as brand closes

Only three seats remain on the final departure from Manchester to Magaluf on 27 October

Going, going ... the last departure for Thomas Cook's Club 18-30 brand (Thomas Cook)

Prices are soaring for the very last Club 18-30 holiday, which departs from Manchester on 27 October 2018.

A three-night all-inclusive holiday at the BH Mallorca Hotel in Magaluf is selling for £618 per person, with only three seats remaining. A UK-Australia return flight on that date is cheaper.

Thomas Cook, which owns the brand, is closing down Club 18-30 at the end of the summer season. It appears that the imminent demise of the clubbing holiday, after nearly half a century, has spurred demand – in much the same way as there was a surge in demand for the last departures of a slightly more upmarket travel product, Concorde, 15 years ago.

The firm’s UK chief executive, Ingo Burmester said: “We have, in the absence of a viable alternative that makes sense for Thomas Cook or the brand, decided that Club 18-30 will close at the end of this season.”

The last flight home from Mallorca to Manchester at 9.20pm on 30 October will bring an end to this style of clubbing holidays.

Thomas Cook acquired the brand in 1998. This summer it has promised “banging nightlife and wild activities at any time of the day or night”, even though the company’s corporate history notes that its founder “was a religious man who believed that most Victorian social problems were related to alcohol”.

In recent years sales have dwindled, even though the permitted age range has widened from 17 to 35. Thomas Cook looked for possible buyers, but there was insufficient interest in a brand that is seen as in decline.

Thomas Cook is now promoting a new youth brand, Cook’s Club, saying: “Times have changed. The modern-day wanderer craves more, and we think it’s high time to offer something extraordinary.”

It promises “a melting pot of cultures, textures and flavours that creates a casually cool paradise where everyone is welcome”.

A spokesperson for Thomas Cook said: “Cook’s Club has been a real success this summer. Our first hotel in Crete has had 93 per cent occupancy, even with 50 per cent more rooms to fill, (we added another block) and the average selling price is almost double compared with the hotel as it was before it became a Cook’s Club.”

Club 18-30 was born in the 1970s during the surge in package holidays. The parent company collapsed in the downturn of 1991. When the brand was resurrected three years later, it had several advertisements banned as offensive; a picture of a man wearing boxer shorts had the slogan: “Girls. Can we interest you in a package holiday?”

The campaign for Cook’s Club has not been without controversy. Thomas Cook has rebranded planes with the slogan “I [heart] Cook’s Club”. Unfortunately when door 2 on the aircraft is opened emblazoned on the side, the second “o” in Cook becomes a “c”.

Someone who narrowly qualified for a Club 18-30 holiday in 1970 would now be 78.