

We think that business should be fun & exciting
especially a business selling attractions, theme park hotels and worldwide experiences.
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Our Vision
To Add Happiness® to peoples' holidays. It's as simple as that.
That’s why we come to work in the mornings: to inspire our customers to do more on their holiday.
Here’s why. When you think back to your last holiday, is it the flight over that you remember? Checking in to the hotel? Or is it actually the moment you met Mickey Mouse for the first time? Is it the car you hired, the hotel transfers you arranged, or is it swooping over the stunning landscape of the Grand Canyon in a helicopter that sticks in your mind?
We think we know the answer; it’s all these amazing things that you DO on holiday which create long lasting memories and add happiness to your trip. Our vision is that everyone who comes to us is inspired to do something they might never have thought of doing before, and gets out there.
Why we do what we do
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Our story
At ATD Travel Services, Adding Happiness® to people’s holidays is at the heart of everything we do. Whether your perfect holiday experience is skipping down Main Street USA at Walt Disney World, hovering over the New York sights in a luxury chopper, or enjoying a whale watching experience in Iceland, we’re confident that it’s what you do on holiday that will Add Happiness®, rather than the flight, car rental or holiday insurance. Because of this, we’ve been toiling away for over a decade to bring you the best experiences from quality suppliers all over the world.
It all began in 2002, when ATD founder Oliver Brendon asked himself – why aren’t people pre-purchasing their gate-ready Florida attraction tickets online before they arrive, rather than waiting in queues at the parks to buy a ticket or exchange a tour operator voucher? Good question. With a loan of £10,000 from his parents, Olly built a website, found himself a desk and office chair and opened up the phone lines. Long hours, thousands of phone calls and 365 days of solid work ensued! It turns out, the customers were asking themselves the same question all along.
A little while down the line, Olly had put in enough elbow grease that he was able to hire Martin ‘Dicky’ Barton, who has been ‘delivering the dream’ (his words, not ours) as Head of Dispatch at ATD ever since. Even though calls were coming in thicker and faster than Olly and Dicky could handle alone, Olly wanted to expand the business. Help came from Chris Bradshaw, university friend and former manager at TUI, who brought in lots of relevant industry experience and today is Group Marketing Director and part owner of ATD Travel Services. Caroline Leon joined the team shortly after and has since become Head of Reservations (and controller of the radio stations), celebrating her 10th year at ATD last year. In fact, although we’ve expanded a lot over the last few years, today there are eight (soon to be nine!) people from the team in the 10 year club. What they don’t know about our experiences isn’t worth knowing.
By 2005, Olly had won the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, and the following year the team decided they weren’t content to just be Florida experts anymore; they wanted their customers to be able to explore the world and experience something extraordinary while they were doing it. DoSomethingDifferent.com was launched in 2006 and now sells experiences in nearly 50 countries all over the world. International expansion followed with the launch of the Attraction Tickets Direct brand in Ireland, Germany and Brazil. We’ve also recently expanded into selling theme park hotel packages with the launch of themeparkbeds.com, selecting the finest hotels and comfiest beds after much ‘difficult’ research! We’re always growing and thinking of new ideas to add happiness® to our customers’ holidays.
Today we’ve reached a 130-strong team, most of whom are based at the Clapham HQ, though Olly is keen to keep the small business ethos – not only in our customer service, but in the office too. There’s Friday team lunches, charitable endeavours, sports challenges and even the odd after work drink at our local. We have a great time in the office and out on the road, on familiarisation trips to all our fabulous destinations – riding ALL the big rollercoasters so we can make sure we offer you the best and most up to date information on our experiences. Because after all, our customers’ enjoyment is all that really matters to us.
I suppose all that’s left to do is to introduce you to the team. Or why not join the gang?
Milestones

2014
ThemeParkBeds.com launches

2012
Launch of Parques e Ingressos

2009
Appointed preferred partner for Universal Parks

2008
Launch of Attraction Tickets Direct Germany
2008
Appointed preferred partner for SeaWorld Parks

2007
First ever ‘Theme Park Specialist’ shop in Europe

2007
ATD Travel Services diversifies to include tour operator brand

2006
Attraction Tickets Direct sells 1 million Disney visits

2006
Fastest growing travel company in the UK

2006
Launch of Do Something Different

2005
Formation of ATD Travel Services
2005
Acquisition of a new brand

2005
Oliver Brendon wins Young Entrepreneur of the Year

2003
Launch of a second Orlando specialist brand
2002
Attraction Tickets Direct opens the phone lines
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ThemeParkBeds.com launches
2014
Attraction Tickets Direct launches ThemeParkBeds.com, specialising in selling Disney hotels to the UK travel trade. Having worked so closely with trade partners through DoSomethingDifferent.com and with an excellent relationship with Disney, this was a logical and exciting expansion step for the business.