[SINGAPORE] As it celebrates its 15th anniversary, EU Holidays is sticking by its founding principle – to “just try”. It is gearing up for upcoming launches such as tours tailored for youth and its own travel card, as well as its entry into China.
This year marks another milestone for EU Holidays – it received an Enterprise 50 (E50) Award, achieving a top five finish on its first try.
Relatively young for a big-name travel agency in Singapore, it stands out from the crowd as it continues to experiment with new, evolving products and experiences.
Managing director Alan Ang and his co-founder envisioned tours that would feature in-depth, experiential travel, moving past the common model where travellers would only nap on the coach, stop for toilet breaks and snap pictures.
Ang said: “At that time, it was just: ‘Let’s take it as it is, let’s try and see how it goes.’”
As its name suggests, EU Holidays began with a focus on exploring Europe. To provide good rates without compromising quality, it put larger groups on coaches and worked directly with a few hotels and restaurants, committing higher volumes.
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Part of its early success happened by chance. The 2011 earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan diverted tourism to Europe, which was already popular among Singaporeans.
But as the business grew, customers demanded shorter, cheaper packages, Ang said. People would go on holiday two to three times a year, but it would not be realistic to go to Europe that often. To keep these customers, EU Asia Holidays was created in 2013.
That year, EU Holidays also started EU meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions as part of its strategy to bring in an individual with specialised expertise, who they believed could help the company grow.
Pioneering new ways to travel
EU Holidays has marked several firsts among tour agencies in Singapore, including bringing sledging “to the common people” and establishing the Republic’s first ski and snowboard academy.
It continues to evolve and experiment.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, cruises have become increasingly popular among Singaporeans, Ang noted. The company is trialling a new dedicated online cruise platform, which compiles all contracted cruises for direct booking.
Customers will have the convenience of multiple cruise line options in one place, as well as better access to support, he said.
“I want to build out a reliable website, like, for example, Hotels.com. I can do something like a cruises.com.”
While the site launched in August this year, EU Holidays is still working out technical glitches, and hopes it will be commercially viable by the end of next year.
In the past couple of months, EU Holidays has also launched family learning journeys, providing educational, experiential holidays for children. For example, when they visit pandas in China, they learn about how pandas live, and animal conservation.
“They plant trees in Malaysia, they pluck fruits in Taiwan,” said Ang. “It’s not just the activity, but it’s really to let them learn something outside of school.”
Each tour is crafted and delivered by a team of not just product developers but local operators and experts, which could include teachers and lecturers. The agency has started small with “micro tours” for feedback, to make tweaks before scaling up.
Familiar concepts, new audiences
For next year, Ang highlighted two key projects.
In early 2026, EU Holidays will be rolling out 1835, a new travel arm targeting young travellers aged 18 to 35. It will promote these tours based on three areas: experiences that travellers cannot achieve on their own; building bonds; and “energy”.
“We also want to tell them that group tours aren’t that constrained,” Ang added. “It doesn’t mean that you have to wake up at 7 am and just spend a whole 14 hours outside.”
Catering to their interests and abilities, activities could range from clubbing to physically strenuous outdoor activities such as drifting and hiking, all while maintaining its strict safety standards. EU Holidays is also considering working with influencers to lead such trips.
Travellers can think of 1835 as the “Contiki of the East”, Ang said, referring to a similar social group travel company popular among Westerners. EU Holidays’ version is tailored for an Asian demographic, who may be interested in the experience but find the Contiki tour groups “overwhelming and rowdy”.
For a start, it plans to offer tours to Greece and Italy.
Observing that many of its customers still lack a travel card for use overseas, EU Holidays is preparing to launch its own in January 2026.
For regulatory reasons, it will be a prepaid card where users can store funds in multiple currencies, offering “a much better (exchange) rate” than bank cards. It will also be usable in Singapore and offer rebates, which could be compelling as an alternative for those who do not want to use credit cards, Ang said.
Flying high on strong performance
To keep its offerings fresh, EU Holidays employs the largest pool of product planners in Singapore, with six dedicated to Europe, two to three for China, and one each for Japan and Korea.
This allows them to better understand each destination, and combine that with their grasp of Singaporeans’ demands, to refresh the company’s itineraries every six months. The company also speaks with local operators and tourism boards, to stay updated on new offerings.
From just five operational staff in 2010, EU Holidays now employs 190 staff. While the company provides customised tours, 80 per cent of its sales come from packaged tours.
With borders reopening more fully post Covid, 2023 was a bumper year, on the back of revenge travel. But the company has managed to continue to mark year on year growths in revenue, albeit at a slower rate.
And it is confident that demand for travel will remain. Traditionally seen as a “luxury good”, it is now a “necessary luxury”. Said Ang: “It’s just a matter of where.”
China tours are now top sellers, with revenue from them growing about 50 per cent year on year for 2025.
“We have over 100 different kinds of packages for China alone,” Ang said, adding that it has increased resource investments into developing and selling tours there.
EU Holidays plans to open a China office in the latter half of next year, supporting the coordination of tours in China, mainly for Singaporeans and Malaysians. Eventually, it aims to carry out outbound tours from China, taking advantage of the large potential customer base.
Winning the E50 award will support this overseas expansion, providing assurance that EU Holidays can offer “Singapore quality”, Ang said.
Beyond tourism, EU Holidays has started looking into other lifestyle businesses.
It opened its food and beverage (F&B) arm, Eupicurean this year. Eupicurean holds franchising rights for three outlets of Killiney Kopitiam. The plan is for this business arm to one day become an independent F&B player, said Ang.
Separately, EU Holidays has also dipped its toes into events, and is mulling hosting music festivals in the future.
“Ten years down the line, our ambition is not (to be) a travel agency, but a lifestyle company.”
